Bill Harris (geneticist)

Bill studied biochemistry at the University of St Andrews, Scotland and then obtained his PhD at the University of Dundee in 1969. His first publication, 'The origin of life - A master molecule' was winner of the Endeavour Prize in 1968. At the time, it was not yet understood what were the 'minimal requirements' of the living cell and in this review, possible mechanisms for the origin of the primeval cell were discussed.[13]

Between 1969 and 1978 Bill was a lecturer in biochemistry in Aberdeen University and then entered industry as Head of In Vitro Toxicology, Inveresk Research International (IRI Ltd.) 1978–80. He established and was Head of Biotechnology at IRI,[14] 1980–86, was Research Director of Bioscot Ltd. 1986-87 and then became Professor of Genetics in Aberdeen University in 1987 where he remained until taking early retirement in 2003.

Between 1980 and 1987 he also served as Technical Director of Investments in Biotechnology by Cogent Ltd, the Technology Transfer Investment Arm of Legal & General/Commercial Union Assurance companies. He was co-founder of one of the first and world leading antibody engineering companies, Scotgen Ltd., in 1987, its Managing Director 1987–92,[15][16] and President and Chief Scientific Officer of Scotgen Biopharmaceutical Inc. until he resigned in 1994.

Bill's research focused in health care and environmental management and the work involved tackling problems focusing on protein engineering. Combinatorial libraries were designed and used to select and evolve new proteins that would have higher affinity for their targets, improved stability and ease of production.[17]

The aims of the research were:

"to provide novel binding proteins with affinities for their targets which are much higher than those provided by traditional monoclonals through the use of antibody phage display libraries and combinatorial libraries based upon novel scaffolds.

to design antibody fragment configurations with improved solubility, thermal, proteolytic resistance, and stability in organic solvents and detergents.

to provide methods for manufacture of antibody fragments on a scale, and at a cost acceptable for application in environmental management and as components of topical pharmaceuticals, cosmeceuticals or consumer goods."[17]

Bill Harris spent 9 years (1978–87) with Inveresk Research International, Edinburgh, Scotland, initially as Head of In Vitro Toxicology and then introduced and was Head of Biotechnology. IRI Ltd were a contract research organisation providing safety testing facilities for new chemicals. They later merged with the Charles River Laboratories in Edinburgh, before being acquired by Quotient Bioresearch Limited in 2009.[21] He managed contracts with US. NCI, NIOSH, US Army as well as many European and USA companies. This was the exciting era of environmental toxicology with predictive mutagenicity and carcinogenicity testing of thousands of chemicals in widespread use in pharmaceutical, cosmetic, chemical and food industries and a lot of time was spent visiting and advising companies on the impact of results on their businesses. A broad knowledge of procedures and legal requirements for safety assessment of new drugs during product development programmes was obtained at this time.

During this period, Bill was also technical advisor for investments in biotechnology by Cogent Ltd. This pioneering investment group provided vital funding to projects at the stage between initial university research discovery and industrial product development. In 1987, Cogent Ltd acquired the monoclonal antibody manufacturing company, Bioscot Ltd where Bill then served as Research Director. During this time, he directed the expansion of the companies' business into provision of novel immunoassay technologies and products, and developed an ELISA based test for the environmental monitoring of Legionella pneumophila, marketed by Boots Microcheck.[22]