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Gill Samuels, Chair of the Foundation Council
Gill Samuels, Chair of the Foundation Council
Dr Gill Samuels is a physiologist and neuropharmacologist by training. She recently retired from the position of Executive Director of Science Policy and Scientific Affairs, Europe, at the Sandwich Laboratories of Pfizer Global Research and Development. She was formerly Director of Cardiovascular Biology for Pfizer, contributing to the discovery of several new medicines, now marketed.
Her more recent work has focused at different times, on the science base (President of the Association of Science Education, Director of the Babraham Institute, member of MRC Strategy Development Group, of ESRC Advisory Committee on Innovation in Genetics and of the European Research Advisory Board of DG Research); issues of healthcare in the UK (UK Government Healthcare Foresight panel), in the OECD (Vice Chair of the OECD/BIAC Expert Group on Biotechnology related to Healthcare) and in LDCs (Co-chair of WHO/IFPMA Working Group on R&D for neglected infectious diseases of LDCs). She is also a member of WHO’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) for TDR.
Dr Samuels has served on two Government Commissions (Human Genetics and Intellectual Property Rights) and since 2004 has been chair of the Biosciences Futures Forum, a horizon-scanning and issue-management group reporting to government. She also works on ethical issues surrounding the use of animals in medical research, was a Board Member of the Coalition for Medical Progress and is Chair of the Biomedical Research Education Trust. Since 2003 she has been Chair of the Cheltenham Science Festival and a member of Council of the Royal Institution.
Dr Samuels is interested in women’s careers in science (Vice-President of the Association of Women in Science and Engineering, co-author of SETFair the Greenfield Report on Women in Science).
She is also a member of the Rosalind Franklin Award Panel of the Royal Society and a member of the Athena Project Advisory Panel. She received the Order of Commander of the British Empire (CBE) award for services to the Bioscience and Pharmaceutical industries in 2002 and the First Woman in Science award by the Confederation of British Industry in January 2006.
Dr Samuels joined the Global Forum’s Foundation Council in 2004 representing the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association and then STRATEC in 2005. She became Chair of the Foundation Council in November 2007.