Martin Humphries became Vice-President and Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences in September 2008, and is a Professor of Biochemistry. Martin received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Manchester in 1983. From 1983-1988, he carried out postdoctoral research at the Howard University Cancer Center, Washington, D.C., USA and at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA. In 1988, he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship to return to Manchester. In 1995, he progressed to a Principal Research Fellowship and was a co-founder of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research, which he now directs.

Martin's research aims to elucidate the mechanisms of cell adhesion. The interactions between adhesion receptors and their extracellular matrix ligands control the behaviour of cells and determine tissue architecture by regulating movement, orientation, growth and death. Adhesion also contributes to common human diseases, including inflammation, thrombosis and tumour spread. Martin's discoveries include pinpointing sites within extracellular matrix molecules that determine adhesion, developing these agents as anti-inflammatory therapeutics, determining the mechanisms of adhesion receptor function, and elucidating how adhesion receptors act as sensors of the cell microenvironment.

Professor Cay Kielty studied Biochemistry at Kings College London and graduated in 1978. She then obtained a PhD in Biochemical Genetics from University College London in 1981.

She began her professional career in 1981 as a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Medical Biochemistry, University of Manchester. After a short family career-break, she was awarded a Wellcome Trust Post-doctoral Research Fellowship (1990-1993) then two consecutive MRC Senior Research Fellowships (1993-2003) at the University of Manchester. She is a Royal Society Wolfson Research Professor.

Her research focuses on the assembly, structure and function of the extracellular matrix and vascular cell-matrix biology, and recently on mesenchymal stem cells in vascular remodelling. She has been a Principal Investigator within the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research since its inception, led the 'Vascular and Tubular Structures' programme within the UK Centre for Tissue Engineering (2001-2007), and is currently a Principal Investigator within the UK Centre for Tissue Regeneration.

Ray Boot-Handford is a Professor of Biochemistry within the Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research. He is Associate Dean for Postgraduate Research in the Faculty of Life Sciences and chairs the Faculty Tuition Fees Policy committee. Ray also Chairs the British Society for Matrix Biology, is a member of the Arthritis Research UK Research Sub-committee and a managing editor for The Journal of Histochemistry and Cytochemistry.

Ray obtained a Biochemistry degree from University College, Cardiff (1976) and PhD from University Collagen London (1980). Ray moved to a postdoc with Mike Grant in Manchester to research basement membrane changes in diabetes. In 1985 Ray was awarded a Lions Club Fellowship to continue his work firstly at Rutgers Medical School, NJ, USA and more latterly at newly formed Jefferson Institute of Molecular Medicine in Philadelphia. In 1987, he returned to The University of Manchester on a RNIB Fellowship and was appointed to a lectureship in 1989. Ray’s lab was the first to clone mammalian collagen X sequences and went on to identify chondrodysplasias associated with mutations in collagen X. In 1999, Ray was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Leave Fellowship to learn and apply mouse gene targeting techniques. The major current focus of the lab is in determining disease mechanisms associated with osteoarthritis and with mutations in cartilage genes such as type X collagen using in vivo mouse models of disease.

Professor Nigel Scrutton received his PhD (1988) and ScD (2003) from the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge he held a Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellowship (1988-91), College Research Fellowship (1989-92) and a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (1991-1999). In 1995 he moved to the University of Leicester as Royal Society University Research Fellow where he later became Lister Institute Research Professor of Biochemistry (1999-2004) and Professor of Biochemistry (1999-2005).

He was subsequently appointed Professor of Molecular Enzymology at the University of Manchester (2005), BBSRC Professorial Research Fellow (2006-2011) and Associate Dean for Research (2008). He is recipient of the Biochemical Society Colworth Medal and the Royal Society of Chemistry Charmian Medal.

Nigel has research interests in the mechanisms and structures of enzyme systems, with particular emphasis on understanding the physical basis of biological catalysis. His work is set at the interface of chemistry, biology and physics and is focused on elucidating fundamental mechanisms of enzyme systems from the quantum to macromolecular levels. His work is highly interdisciplinary and is centred in the Manchester Interdisciplinary Biocentre, with strong links to the Photon Science Institute.

His discoveries include new modes of enzymatic H-transfer by quantum mechanical tunneling mechanisms, conformational control of biological electron transfer reactions and the rational design/redesign of protein systems to catalyze new chemical transformations.

Professor Matthew Cobb studied Psychology at the University of Sheffield, and went on to do his PhD there in Psychology and Genetics (1984). After a postdoctoral position at the Institute of Psychiatry (London) he moved to France on a Royal Society Science Exchange Programme to study chemical communication - how animals communicate with each other using their sense of smell and pheromones. In 1988 he joined the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, where he remained until 2002, working on the sense of smell using Drosophila maggots, and chemical communication in ants.

In 2002, he returned to the UK, taking up a post as Lecturer in Animal Behaviour. In 2006 he became a Senior Lecturer and in 2010 Professor of Zoology. In September 2010 he became Associate Dean for Social Responsibility.

As well as pursuing his research into the sense of smell, he writes and blogs popular science, produces a weekly electronic newsletter (z-letter.com) and has published prize-winning popular history books ("The Egg & Sperm Race: The Seventeenth Century Scientists who Unravelled the Secrets of Sex, Life and Growth" - 2006 and "The
Resistance: The French Fight Against the Nazis" - 2009).

Catherine McCrohan obtained her first degree in Natural Sciences (Zoology) at the University of Cambridge (1977), followed by a doctorate in Invertebrate Neurobiology at the University of Sussex (1980). She has since held positions as lecturer and senior lecturer in Zoology at the University of Manchester, first in the Department of Zoology, then Physiological Sciences and most recently in the Faculty of Life Sciences. The underlying theme of her research is the analysis of neuronal coding mechanisms in sensory and motor systems of invertebrates and lower vertebrates, including the relationship between electrical activity patterns of small populations of neurons and whole animal behaviour. She has spent three periods of sabbatical leave at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, studying neuronal correlates of motivational state in molluscs.

As Associate Dean for Teaching, Learning and Students, Catherine has responsibilty for student recruitment and teaching and learning matters in the Faculty.

Ian Kimber is currently Professor of Toxicology at the University of Manchester. Previous to that he was Head of Research and Principal Fellow at the Syngenta Central Toxicology Laboratory.

He has broad research interests based around immunotoxicology, including: (a) the characteristics of allergy caused by chemical, drugs and proteins, (b) cutaneous immune responses and the roles played by Langerhans cells and (c) functional subpopulations of T lymphocytes.

Professor Kimber holds, and has held, a variety of positions on national and international expert and scientific advisory committees. Currently these include the following: UK Medical Research Council (MRC) Training and Career Group, Special Advisor to the MRC on Industrial Liaison, UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) Committee for Safety of Devices, Programme Advisor Food Standards Agency Food Allergy and Intolerance Research Programme, member of the Executive Committee of the MRC Centre for Drug Safety Sciences and Chair of the UK National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs).

He has published over 500 research papers, review articles and book chapters and serves currently on the editorial boards of toxicology, immunology, dermatology and pathology journals.

Professor Kimber has received a number of awards and prizes. These include: the SmithKline Beecham Laboratory Animal Welfare Prize (2000) (jointly with David Basketter and Frank Gerberick), the 9th Robert A Scala Award in Toxicology (2001), the Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation Prize for Realistic Animal Protection in Biomedical Research (2001), Society of Toxicology Enhancement of Animal Welfare Award (2003) (jointly with Frank Gerberick), and Society of Toxicology Immunotoxicology Career Achievement Award (2005).

Stephen Taylor obtained a Bachelors degree in Biochemistry from the University of Manchester and then a PhD from the University of Oxford in 1995. He then moved to the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, funded by a Wellcome Trust Traveling post-doctoral fellowship, before returning to Manchester in 1998, funded by a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship. In 2004 he was awarded a Senior Research Fellowship from Cancer Research UK and in 2009 Stephen was promoted to Professor.

Professor Ian Roberts obtained his PhD in Genetics from the University of Birmingham in 1984 and was appointed to a Lectureship at the University of Leicester in 1987. He was awarded a Lister Fellowship in 1995 and was appointed to the Chair in Microbiology at the University of Manchester in the same year. From 2000 to 2004, prior to the merger of the two Universities, he served as Research Dean for the School of Biological Sciences. Currently he is Chairman of the Training and Awards Committee of the BBSRC, as well as being a member of the BBSRC Biosciences Skills and Careers Strategy Panel and the Strategic Lola Committee.

His research is focussed on looking at pathogenic bacteria and how they interact with the human host, particularly focussing on cell surface of Escherichia coli and the intracellular survival of Listeria monocytogenes.

Nancy Papalopulu is a Professor of Neuroscience and a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow.

Nancy completed her PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research, London in 1990. She worked as a Post-doctoral Fellow (HFSPO) in the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology at the Salk Institute for Biomedical Research, La Jolla, USA between 1991 and 1996 before moving to the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute, Cambridge, UK to become a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow in 1997. She was promoted to Senior Research Fellow in 2000 and stayed in Cambridge until 2006 when she moved to the Faculty of Life Sciences at The University of Manchester.

The research in Nancy's lab is aimed at understanding the molecular mechanisms that control vertebrate neurogenesis. They use the frogs Xenopus laevis and Xenopus tropicalis as model systems and a combination of molecular, cellular and embryological techniques.

Amanda Bamford obtained a Bachelors degree in Applied Biology from the University of Bath (1982) and then a PhD - funded as a CASE N.E.R.C. studentship - from the University of Lancaster in 1985. Following post-doctoral research at Lancaster University and University of Florida, USA on the impacts of air pollution and global climate change on plants, Amanda joined University of Manchester in 1994, becoming Senior Teaching Fellow in 2004 and Senior Lecturer in 2011. She gained the teaching qualification of Certificate in Education for Post-16 in 1999. She has been the North West's BBSRC Schools and Community Coordinator for Public engagement for the last 7 years, successfully obtaining funding from RCUK, BBSRC and Royal Society to run public engagement events. Amanda teaches in the areas of environmental biology, plant science and pollution studies contributing to first year practicals, 2nd and 3rd year lecture units, field courses and postgraduate courses including MSc Pollution and Environmental Control. She is also Programme Director for the Faculty of Life sciences Foundation year programme.

Terry Brown obtained a Microbiology degree from Queen Elizabeth College London in 1974 and a PhD from University College London in 1977. He then studied in New York, Oxford and Essex before moving to UMIST as a postdoctoral researcher in 1980. He was appointed Professor of Biomolecular Archaeology at UMIST in 2000 and was Head of Biomolecular Sciences at UMIST from 2002–2004, the two years leading up to the merger and creation of the new Faculty of Life Sciences. He then acted as Associate Dean for Communication and External Relations in FLS until 2006.

Terry began his research career studying the effects of metal pollution on microorganisms and the tolerance that some plants display to high concentrations of toxic metals. He then became excited by DNA and worked on mitochondrial genes in fungi in order to learn the new (in those days) techniques for gene cloning and DNA sequencing. In the later 1980s he became interested in ancient DNA and was one of the first people to carry out DNA extractions with bones and preserved plant remains. This work has required close collaboration with archaeologists, both in Manchester and elsewhere, and has led to his current interests in the origins of agriculture, genetic profiling of archaeological skeletons, and the evolution of disease.

David studied Natural Sciences at The University of Cambridge and was awarded a PhD (1971) and ScD (1990). He was a project leader in the BBSRC Laboratory of Molecular Signalling in Cambridge before moving to Oxford in 1999 to be Head of Neural Signalling in the MRC Functional Genomics Unit and Professor of Molecular Neurobiology. He has worked as a visiting researcher at Harvard, MIT, UPenn, UMass Amherst and The University of Tokyo. In 2010 he was appointed Professor of Molecular Neurobiology in the Faculty of Life sciences in The University of Manchester.

David and his colleagues study ligand-gated ion channels, which are important drug targets. They also model neurodegenerative and neuromuscular disorders using the genetic model organism C. elegans, which is well suited to automated, low-cost, in vivo drug screening, thereby expediting the translation of new drug candidates towards the clinic.

Dr Simon Merrywest received a Bachelors degree in Anatomical Sciences from the University of Dundee in 1998 and went on to complete a Neuroscience PhD at the University of St Andrews. This examined the contribution of neurotransmitters to the spinal control of locomotion. He remained in St Andrews for several years, undertaking a variety of research, administrative and teaching roles in the School of Biology.

Simon joined the newly formed University of Manchester in October 2004, as a Research Business Manager in the Faculty of Life Sciences. In this diverse role he supported academic staff in a variety of ways; from identifying funding opportunities and preparing grant applications, to recruiting new staff, liaising with stakeholders and developing research collaborations.

Simon became Deputy Head of Faculty Administration in April 2007. He has specific responsibilities for long-term strategic and operational issues such as the preparation of Faculty plans and the planning of new space, the management of health and safety and the provision of research and business administrative support across the Faculty.

As of January 2011, Simon became the Head of Faculty Administration.