Alumni Profile: Hannah Byrne

Memories

During my undergraduate degree, one of my favourite memories was the time I spent in industry during my third year, which allowed me to gain experience and insight into a career after my degree. Another good memory was the class environmental trip away to Cornwall. During my PhD, my favourite memory was the daily coffee and scones from the canteen in the Nurses’ building and my graduation day.

Career highlights

During the final months of my PhD, in Prof Richard O’Kennedy’s Lab, I was headhunted on LinkedIn by Kymab, a company based in Cambridge, to join their new bispecific antibody development team.

Within my first year, after successfully building a highthroughput functioning bispecific antibody production platform [patent pending], I was promoted to Project Lead of the company’s latest drug target. In addition, I was tasked with developing the in-house analytics team. I spent three years at Kymab, prior to joining Valitacell in 2017, initially as Product Manager, and now as Head of Biological Sciences.”