Professor Jonathan Blackburn
Chief Scientific Officer, Sengenics
Professor Blackburn is the Chief Scientific Officer at Sengenics. He also holds a Research Chair at the Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, University of Cape Town in South Africa. He is currently the Deputy Director of the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine, as well as Head of the Division of Chemical and Systems Biology.
Professor Blackburn was previously an independent academic in the Department of Biochemistry, Cambridge University where he held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship from 1995 to 2003. He was the academic founder and Chief Scientific Officer of a UK biotechnology company, Sense Proteomic Ltd (1999-2002), Chief Scientist of Procognia Ltd, UK (2003-2006), and founder and Research Director of the Centre for Proteomic and Genomic Research in Cape Town (2006-2008).
He obtained his D.Phil degree in Chemistry from the University of Oxford under the supervision of Professor Sir Jack Baldwin, FRS, and carried out post-doctoral research at the Medical Research Council (UK) with Prof Sir Alan Fersht, FRS.
Professor Blackburn has been elected as a Member of Academy of Science of South Africa and serves on a number of national and international committees including the National Health Research Committee (Department of Health, South Africa) and the Council of the Human Proteome Organisation (HUPO). He sits on the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of Proteome Research and Expert Review of Proteomics. He has published more than 70 papers, 6 book chapters and holds 28 granted patents.
