This was published when the organisation was the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

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Our Science and Research Committee (SRC) provides strategic leadership, advocacy and expert advice in all matters relating to pharmaceutical science and pharmacy research.

The SRC advises the Assembly around our work with pharmaceutical science, research, and evaluation.

Composed of senior figures in science and research from academic, industrial, regulatory, hospital and community practice, the SRC provides expertise, and support our consultation responses, but does not determine RPS national policy.

The SRC is supported by our Science and Research Team, who can be contacted at: [email protected]

Read the SRC Terms of Reference.

SRC Meetings

2026

• Thursday, 5 March (online)
• Tuesday, 12 May (online)
• Tuesday, 8 September (online)
• Thursday, 5 November (in person)

Meet our Science & Research Committee

• Christine Bond (Interim Chair)
• Hend Abdelhakim
• Professor Bryony Dean Franklin
• Ryan Donnelly
• Mar Estupiñan Fdez. de Mesa
• Andrew Fox
• Sophie Harding
• Gillian Hawksworth
• Stephen Husbands
• Oisín Kavanagh
• Barrie Kellam
• Roger Knaggs
• Jayne Lawrence
• Professor Gino Martini
• Olaolu Oloyede
• Rachel Palmer
• Chris Remmington
• Matthew Shaw
• Cristina Voicu-Sfaraila
• Ka-Wai Wan
• Margaret Watson

Contact SRC

[email protected]

Christine Bond (Interim Chair)

Christine Bond, (BPharm (Hons.) , MEd, PhD, FRPharmS, FFRPS FFPH FRCPE, FRCGP) : Emeritus Professor and past Head of Centre of Academic Primary Care University of Aberdeen.

She is Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice (IJPP), international Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, interim Chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Science and Research Board, previous member of the Scottish Pharmacy Board and  immediate past Chair of the RPS Panel of Fellows; with the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England, David Webb, she is the co-chair of the UK Pharmacy Research Advisory Board.

From 1996-2012 she was seconded to Grampian Health Board as Chief Pharmaceutical Officer and part-time Consultant in Pharmaceutical Public Health in which role she was developing new community pharmacy and general practice based pharmacy services.

She has been awarded well over 100 research grants and has over 350 research publications on the contribution of pharmacy, as well as other health care disciplines,  to the delivery of health care, and has a particular interest in the pharmacist’s role in the evidence based, safe and cost-effective use of medicines.

She has sat on many national and international funding bodies including the PRUK Scientific Advisory Panel,  Chief Scientist Health Services Research Committee, Department of Health commissioned calls, Health Research Board (Ireland).

In 2010 she was awarded the Pharmas Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Hend Abdelhakim

Dr Hend Abdelhakim is an academic pharmacist and Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Healthcare Innovation at UCL’s Global Business School for Health. She originally trained as a community pharmacist and qualified as an Independent Prescriber in 2024, bringing frontline clinical insight into her academic and professional work.

She completed a PhD in Pharmaceutics at UCL School of Pharmacy, where she also worked as a researcher and Associate Lecturer, contributing to teaching and interdisciplinary pharmaceutical sciences research. Her academic expertise includes age-appropriate medicines, taste assessment and taste-masking strategies, fixed-dose combinations, and multi-drug formulations, with a strong focus on medicines acceptability, adherence, and patient experience.

Her move to the Global Business School for Health reflects her interest in the interface between pharmaceutical sciences, healthcare innovation, and implementation, including how medicines are developed, regulated, commercialised, and ultimately used in practice. She works across disciplines to bridge pharmaceutical science, clinical pharmacy, ethics, and health systems research.

Dr Abdelhakim is strongly committed to equality, diversity and inclusion and currently chairs the EDI committee in her department, supporting inclusive research cultures, education, and professional practice. She is also co-founder and director of Gustoceutics™, a consultancy focused on patient-centred dosage-form design and palatability assessment, and is committed to strengthening the role of pharmacists in medicines innovation and real-world care.

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Professor Bryony Dean Franklin, BPharm BA MSc PhD FRCPharm FFRPS

Professor Bryony Dean Franklin is a hospital pharmacist by background, with 30 years’ experience of researching medication safety, medication use in practice and patient safety more generally. She is Professor of Medication Safety at UCL School of Pharmacy, Executive Lead Pharmacist (Research) at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Director of the NIHR North West London Patient Safety Research Collaboration and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal BMJ Quality and Safety.

Professor Franklin has published widely on medication safety, the evaluation of various technologies designed to reduce errors, and the patient’s role in patient safety, as well as other aspects of pharmacy practice. Her current post combines research, quality improvement, education and training, medical publishing, hospital pharmacy practice and supporting pharmacy professionals to pursue research careers. She is one of only five pharmacists to receive an NIHR Senior Investigator award.

She is co-editor of the textbook “Safety in Medication Use” and co-author of “Going into Hospital? A guide for patients, carers and families”, a book aimed at the general public.

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Ryan Donnelly

Professor Ryan Donnelly holds the Chair in Pharmaceutical Technology at the School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University Belfast, where he is Director of Research. A registered pharmacist, his research is centred on design and characterisation of advanced polymeric drug delivery systems for transdermal and intradermal drug delivery, with a strong emphasis on improving patient outcomes. He is currently developing a range of novel microneedle technologies through independent research, but also in collaboration with several major pharmaceutical companies.

He is currently Secretary of the Controlled Release Society and is immediate past Chair (President) of the UK’s Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences (2023-2025). He is Europe/Africa Editor of the Controlled Release Society Journal Drug Delivery & Translational Research and a member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Controlled Release.

His research work has attracted more than £30 million in funding and he has authored over 1000 peer-reviewed publications, including more than 20 granted and pending patents, 8 textbooks, 28 book chapters and approximately 500 full papers. He leads a personal research group of approximately 50 people from 15 different countries and has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international conferences. He has won the Laureate of Honor Award of the Controlled Release Society Skin & Mucosal Delivery Focus Group (2025), International Association for Pharmaceutical Technology (APV) Research Award for Outstanding Achievements in the Pharmaceutical Sciences (2024), the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Harrison Medal (2024), the Kydonieus Foundation Transdermal Delivery Award (2024), the European Journal of Pharmaceutics & Biopharmaceutics Most Cited Paper Award (2023), the Drug Delivery & Translational Research Best Paper Award (2023), Visit Belfast’s Ambassador Award for Life & Health Sciences (2022), the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences Innovative Science Award (2020), Evonik’s Resomer Award (2018), the Controlled Release Society’s Young Investigator Award (2016), BBSRC Innovator of the Year (2013), the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists Pharmaceutical Research Meritorious Manuscript Award (2013 & 2022), the GSK Emerging Scientist Award (2012), the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Science Award (2011) and the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland’s Gold Medal (1999).

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Mar Estupiñan Fdez. de Mesa

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Andrew Fox

Andy has been a practising pharmacist for over 30 years and has specialised in paediatric pharmacy for the last 25 years. He has been working in medication safety at UHS since 2004 and was recognised as a Consultant pharmacist for Medicines Safety in 2019.

Andy has a specific research interest in paediatric medication safety and completed his PhD in 2017.

He has been awarded research grants by various bodies including the Health Foundation and the Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacy Group. He has been awarded a UHS Research Leadership Project award and has worked to improve the research capacity and quality of the pharmacy dept.

New research interests include 3d printing and personalised medicine and the use of data to improve medication safety.

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Sophie Harding

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Gillian Hawksworth

Gillian Hawksworth MBE, BPharm (Hons.), DSc Hon, PhD, FRPharmS, FFRPS

A visiting Professor University of Huddersfield, she is a Past President of RPSGB and a Past chair of the RPS Panel of Fellows.

She has been an RPS Pharmaceutical Science advisory member since 2010 and a member of the RPS Pharmaceutical Society Science and Research committee since 2020.

She was a member of the MHRA Chemistry, Pharmacy and standards expert advisory group from 2006 till 2021 which included requests to advise CHM.

With a background in community pharmacy, as an academic her research interests include up to 100 publications focusing on Pharmacy practice, with a particular interest in the pharmacist’s role in antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance.

She has been awarded a number of national professional awards including the RPS Gold Charter award in 2010, the UKCPA lifetime achievement award in 2011 and the RPS lifetime achievement award in 2017.

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Stephen Husbands

Stephen Husbands is Professor, Department of Life Sciences, University of Bath, UK, primarily teaching on the MPharm and MSc in Drug Discovery programmes. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a Member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (UK). His research has focussed on the medicinal chemistry of CNS active drugs, with a particular interest in developing improved therapies for drug use disorders and pain. Working with police, prisons and charities he is also engaged in projects evaluating, both qualitatively and quantitatively, illicit drugs, with a particular interest in those that are hard-to-detect and rapidly evolving, such as the synthetic cannabinoids, benzodiazepines and synthetic opioids.

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Oisín Kavanagh

Oisín N. Kavanagh is a pharmacist and Senior Lecturer in Pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy, Newcastle University and a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

He received the Gold Medal from the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland in 2017 and completed his clinical training in his hometown of Derry before moving to the University of Limerick to undertake his PhD.

He was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the School of Pharmacy, University of Michigan and was subsequently appointed to a Lectureship at Newcastle University in 2021.

He is the Primary Investigator for multiple research streams funded by industry, government, and charitable organisations. This includes EPSRC and Kidney Research UK funded projects investigating nephrotoxicity and a project funded by Action Medical Research/LifeArc focused on engineering new drug formulations for cystinosis, a rare disease.

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Barrie Kellam

Barrie Kellam is Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Head of the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham and Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. He currently serves as the Chair of the Pharmacy Schools Council and is a member of the International Pharmaceutical Federation’s Academic Institutional Membership (FIP AIM) Advisory Committee.

Professor Kellam graduated with a BPharm and PhD from the University of Nottingham. He has led major collaborative drug discovery programmes, teaches extensively across undergraduate and postgraduate pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences courses, and plays a prominent national and international leadership role through positions highlighted above.

His research focuses on small molecule synthetic medicinal chemistry, particularly targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). He has established an international reputation in fluorescent ligand synthesis and the development of fluorescence-based technologies to study ligand–receptor interactions in living cells. This work has driven innovations in high-throughput assays for drug discovery and enabled single-cell pharmacological investigations in healthy and diseased tissues.

Patents arising from his research supported the creation of CellAura Technologies Ltd. in 2006, later acquired by HelloBio in 2014.

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Roger Knaggs

Professor of Pain Management, University of Nottingham

Specialist Pharmacist in Pain Management, Primary Integrated Community Services, Nottingham and Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

Roger is a clinical academic pharmacist. His current position provides teaching and research opportunities whilst maintaining regular clinical practice. Roger’s main research interests focus on the appropriate use of analgesic medicines and associated clinical outcomes and healthcare utilization.

He aims to promote the importance of pain within pharmacy and the role of pharmacy within pain management. Roger was the inaugural chair of the United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association pain management group.

He is the current President of the British Pain Society after having been Vice President, Honorary Secretary, a co-opted and elected Council member. In 2019 he was appointed a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (a Scientific Advisory Committee to the UK Government) and is the Chair of their Technical Committee. In addition, he has associations with several other healthcare policy and government organisations in the UK, including the Faculty of Pain Medicine, Care Quality Commission and NICE.

Roger has chaired the European Pain Federation (EFIC) COVID-19 taskforce since March 2020.

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Jayne Lawrence

After qualifying as a pharmacist, Jayne undertook a PhD at the University of Manchester. She subsequently moved to the Pharmacy Department at King’s College London, eventually becoming first female Professor in the Department. While at King’s College, Jayne also served as Chief Scientist at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, a role she undertook on a half-time secondment.

Jayne subsequently moved to the University of Manchester, where she initially served a six-year stint as Head of Pharmacy and Optometry. She was later appointed as Director of the University of Manchester at Harwell where, amongst other things, she represents the University to the National Facilities on the Harwell campus. 
 
Jayne’s research focuses on the development and characterisation of pharmaceutical nanoformulations. Of note, is the fact that Jayne pioneered the use of neutron scattering techniques to characterise these nanomedicines.

Jayne has a record of developing early-career researchers, having graduated over 60 PhDs students and mentored a similar number of post-doctoral fellows as well as academic colleagues. Jayne has served on numerous national and international level committees, and is currently a member of the UKRI Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Council, France’s Institute de aue Langevin’s (ILL) Science Board, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences.
 
Jayne was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2020 (the “COVID Honours”) for Services to Pharmaceutical Science.

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Professor Gino Martini

CEO – Precision Health Technologies Accelerator (PHTA Ltd)

An experienced academic and industrial pharmacist, Professor Gino Martini has extensive expertise in oncology, rare and infectious diseases, and drug development – as well as policy development and external advocacy.

As the CEO of PHTA – the University of Birmingham’s flagship life sciences research accelerator – Gino is responsible for helping growing businesses to succeed, through making connections to multidisciplinary clinical-academic leaders and providing commercialisation support and expertise.

PHTA is a £60 million state-of-the-art accelerator located within No.1 Birmingham Health Innovation Campus (BHIC), comprising over 70,000 sq ft of incubation, collaboration and training space, located at the heart of the Birmingham Health and Life Sciences District. Together, PHTA and BHIC will generate 10,000 jobs and contribute more than £400 million GVA to the regional economy within the next decade.

Gino joined PHTA in 2021 from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society where, as Chief Scientist, he played a pivotal role in supporting pharmacists during the Covid-19 pandemic.

His career began with Senior Scientist roles at Scherer Drug Delivery Systems and SmithKline Beecham, before joining GSK and rising to Senior Directorships across a 10-year stint.

An experienced academic, Gino was formerly Professor of Pharmaceutical Innovation at King’s College London, undertaking visiting professorships and PhD supervision alongside his industry roles.

He is a past chair of the Industrial Pharmacists Group of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, past president of the European Industrial Pharmacists Group and holds Fellowships from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Royal Society of Chemistry and European Industrial Pharmacists Group.

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Olaolu Oloyede

Olaolu Oloyede is a pharmacist and health economist working in market access and outcomes research, supporting evidence generation and health technology assessment submissions for medicines. He has experience across the NHS, public health and industry, with a focus on demonstrating clinical and economic value to support equitable patient access, including in oncology and other complex therapy areas. He is a former member of a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Technology Appraisal Committee, with experience of the UK payer landscape and the application of value evidence to decision-making.

Olaolu previously served as a Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s Clinical Fellow at Public Health England, contributing to national antimicrobial resistance and stewardship programmes. His work combined surveillance insights and behavioural research to inform policy and promote responsible antimicrobial use, including contributions to Antibiotic Guardian activities.

His interests include the interface between innovative research and patient access, particularly first-in-class therapies, and the translation of evidence to support timely, value-for-money decisions and improved patient outcomes.

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Rachel Palmer

Rachel is a Consultant Pharmacist in genomic medicine for the South West Genomic Medicine Service and is passionate about highlighting the key role of pharmacy professionals in mainstreaming genomic services, to benefit patients.

Rachel has an interest in pharmacogenomics, personalised/precision medicines and has completed an MSc in Genomic Medicine.

Rachel’s enthusiasm for genomics was initiated in her previous role as a Lead Pharmacist for Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products.

In addition to sitting on the RPS Science and Research Committee, she continues to work as an independent prescriber in CAR-T cell services and is a member of the Pan UK Pharmacy Working Group for ATMPs and Membership Engagement Lead for the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association Genomics Committee.

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Chris Remmington

NIHR Doctoral Fellow and Expert Pharmacist Critical Care, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

Chris is a senior pharmacist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust with extensive experience in adult critical care across several large teaching hospitals in London. He is currently undertaking a doctoral fellowship with National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) focusing on protocolised sedation in critically ill adult patients. He is a PhD student and holds an Honorary Senior Lecturer position at King’s College London.

He also holds national leadership roles including Deputy Chair of the Pharmacy Professionals Advisory Group for the Intensive Care Society and is Chair of the UK ECMO Pharmacist Group. He has recently credentialed as Consultant Pharmacist for Critical Care with Royal Pharmaceutical Society in December 2025.

He is research active and has published several peer reviewed articles in high-impact journals on critical care pharmacotherapy (including sedation, steroids, and pulmonary vasoactive agents), and pharmacy workforce. He disseminates his research at international conferences as a speaker and peer-review poster presentations.

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Matthew Shaw

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Cristina Voicu-Sfaraila, MPharm MSc

Cristina qualified as a pharmacist in Romania, where she also completed a Masters in Clinical Pharmacy before making the move to England — a transition that required not only professional adaptation but a determination to rebuild and prove herself in an entirely new healthcare system.

She began her UK career in community pharmacy, where she developed a grounding in patient-facing practice and medicines management that she considers central to everything she has done since.

Driven by curiosity about how medicines are developed and regulated before they reach patients, Cristina moved into the pharmaceutical industry and clinical research. She has worked across regulatory and compliance roles in pharmaceutical companies, as a Clinical Research Associate monitoring trial sites across the UK, and within a sponsor organisation overseeing safety across Phase I–III programmes.

Each role added a new lens — regulatory, operational, safety — through which she came to understand the full lifecycle of a medicine. That breadth of experience now informs her current role as Lead Clinical Trials Pharmacist at Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust, where she oversees a portfolio of 100 clinical studies and recently led the setup of the Trust’s first Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product programme — a milestone she is particularly proud of.

Cristina is a GPhC-registered pharmacist, a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, and a volunteer with the Smell & Taste Charity. She brings to this committee a perspective shaped by pharmacy practice across two countries and three sectors.

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Ka-Wai Wan

Dr Ka-Wai Wan is a pharmacist by training and graduated from The School of Pharmacy (University of London). She was trained as a hospital pharmacist before completing her PhD in nanomedicine at the Welsh School of Pharmacy (Cardiff).

Her research interests lie in the field of nano-based drug delivery systems for targeted therapy and delivery of macromolecules such as nucleotides and proteins, particularly for cancer and antimicrobial applications.

Ka-Wai worked as a research academic for over a decade, and she was a Principal Lecturer in Pharmaceutics and Course Leader for the MSc Industrial Pharmaceutics prior to her transition to the MHRA as a pharmaceutical assessor in 2016.

She is now working as an Expert Quality Assessor at the MHRA, leading on the assessment of nano-based medicinal products, and providing scientific and regulatory advice on innovative medicines, particularly on nanomaterials used for both small and macromolecules delivery. This includes nano-based drug delivery systems using polymers, liposomes and various types of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for a wide variety of medical applications, including mRNA/LNP products as vaccines and cancer immunotherapy.

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Margaret Watson

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