Dr Chris Burns

Dr Chris Burns joined NIBSC in 2005, initially as a Principal Scientist and then Head of the Endocrinology section. In 2017, he took over as Head of the Division of Biotherapeutics. He has more than 20 years’ research experience obtained initially through doctoral studies and post-doctoral academic research at King’s College London and more recently at NIBSC. He has published more than 50 refereed publications and sits on a number of national and international committees and advisory boards relating to medicine safety, international standardisation and the harmonisation of diagnostic tests. He works closely with the World health Organisation, EDQM, the European and US Pharmacopoeias and the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine.  

His research interests are focussed in two major areas. The first underpins the activities of the Division of Biotherapeutics at NIBSC and involves the characterisation of biological medicines such as glycoprotein hormones and monoclonal antibodies using physico-chemical and biological assays, and the development of novel and improved methods for these analyses. The second is a program of work using cellular reprogramming to generate induced pluripotent stem cells for studies into the safety of stem cell therapies. These cells have enormous clinical potential for regenerative medicine applications.However, the successful translation of this potential into effective strategies to treat disease relies on a better understanding of the recipient’s immune response to the transplanted cells, and also how these immune responses may be mitigated.