Carrie Amber, LightOx CSO has had a careers worth of research rewarded this month with the announcement of her professorship at Durham University, an achievement that recognises her substantial contribution to Biological sciences, and her lifetime work in skin and wound healing.
This award is the first in Durham to be given to a female academic member of staff, a fact that Carrie is very proud of having joined the department in 2007 from Cancer Research UK.
From Academia to Business
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LightOx Limited was founded in 2016 by Carrie along with two other professors, Andy Whiting and Mark Coles following their collaborations on developing new molecules that can penetrate and “light up’ damaged cells with a fluorescent drug in a multitude of cell types.
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LightOx is now focussed on applying this technology in the treatment of Oral cancers and looks to enter clinical trials in late 2021 following the rapid development of lead drug candidates in the last few years. LightOx closely works with the research teams of our academic directors to bring through new innovations, recruit new staff members and collaboration partners from around the world
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The drug development program will allow clinicians to treat early stage lesions, with a topical application, and then activate the drug using a light source similar to that a dentitions would use in their surgeries.
The Power of Research & Collaborations with Business
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Carrie has focussed her research over the years on skin disease, and wound healing and has brought this expertise to LightOx, giving the company unique insight into the development of epithelial diseases. Her collaborations throughout her career have opened doors for the company, and we continue to research and develop our technology in a variety of new areas, including bacterial, fungal and more recently plant sciences. Work that has been recognised with the addition of a new PhD student working in conjunction with the Agriculture school in Newcastle Univeristy, close to the company offices.
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The company has a strong research grounding and we continue not only to patent our technologies extensively, but we also recognise the importance of sharing this with the outside world and this can be seen most recently with the team achieving the front cover article on some of our work, which can be found here.
