Rising Star – Graeme Macluskie
INTRODUCING GRAEME MACLUSKIE
At REPROCELL’s Centre for Predictive Drug Discovery and Research, Graeme leads the R&D team that create new and innovative ways of testing drugs using human fresh tissue. Graeme is credited with developing our phenotypic skin disease models – which use a cocktail of inflammatory compounds to induce skin disease phenotypes in healthy biopsies- and the establishment of our IBD permeability model – which uses gastrointestinal tissues from IBD patients to estimate drug permeability (1,2).
Recently, Graeme has taken on the responsibility of directing REPROCELL’s newly established Precision Medicine Services, which aim to stratify patient populations earlier in the drug development process. Precision Medicine has been a priority for the Scottish Government for over 5 years, as Scotland is well-placed to be an international leader in these technologies. Yet the benefits extend well-beyond patient quality of life: by realizing the full potential of precision medicine, cumulative health savings are estimated to be £70 billion (3). Over the last 3 years, Graeme has authored two journal articles which use human tissues to inform precision medicine strategies (4,5).
1. Skin disease Assays, 2. Permeability in IBD Tissues, 3. Precision Medicine Innovation in Scotland:Accelerating Productivity Growth for Scotland and the UK, 4. Combining explainable machine learning, demographic and multi-omic data to identify precision medicine strategies for inflammatory bowel disease (2021) 5. Application of pharmacogenomics and bioinformatics to exemplify the utility of human ex vivo organoculture models in the field of precision medicine (2019).
Graeme is a loyal, hard-working individual with a natural aptitude for research and development. He is an innovative thinker, an excellent leader who is liked by his colleagues (in 2019 he was awarded a prize by his colleagues for his contribution to REPROCELL), and a talented scientist. As an expert in ex vivo research, Graeme is an invaluable member of the REPROCELL team who has worked closely with Scottish leaders in Precision Medicine to demonstrate the use of human fresh tissue in precision medicine. Although he has already achieved so much at a young age, I believe this is just the beginning of Graeme’s success in the life-science industry.
PRECISION MEDICINE SUCCESS
Graeme joined REPROCELL (formerly Biopta) in 2011 as a Human Tissue Scientist, was soon promoted to Head of R&D, and is now Director of Precision Medicine at the company. He has established several novel human fresh tissue models during his time at REPROCELL and has authored three papers on inflammatory disease research (1,2,3). These studies were supported by funding awarded by the Precision Medicine Scotland Innovation Centre (PMS-IC), and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.
1. Combining explainable machine learning, demographic and multi-omic data to identify precision medicine strategies for inflammatory bowel disease (2021) 2. Application of pharmacogenomics and bioinformatics to exemplify the utility of human ex vivo organoculture models in the field of precision medicine (2019) 3. P142 Topical MTX-GNPs reduce IMQ-induced inflammation in mice (2018)
ORGANISATION AND TEAM
REPROCELL Europe is a contract research organization based in the West of Scotland Science Park. We market a range of products and services, but our key offering is human tissue testing in fresh tissue resections recovered from surgical intervention. There are two key departments within the Centre for Predictive drug discovery based in Glasgow – our operations team, that work in the lab, and our sales and marketing members, who currently work from home. The operations team are responsible for fulfilling the practical work associated with the services offered.
Research and Development is a sub-set of this team who are responsible for developing new human tissue models to meet the changing needs of the market. As Director of Precision Medicine, Graeme will work between the operations and sales and marketing team to satisfy both business and scientific goals.
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