The European Laboratory Research & Innovation Group (ELRIG) UK, today announced the election of Melanie Leveridge as Chair. Melanie will guide the not-for-profit organisation serving the life science and drug discovery communities, to help drive further collaboration and knowledge exchange between academic and biopharma industry thought-leaders, through the provision of scientific meetings and conferences on an open access basis. Melanie succeeds Steve Rees, who will be stepping down after four years as ELRIG Chair.

Melanie has 15 years’ experience in drug discovery, laboratory automation, screening and sample management and has been an active member of ELRIG since 2017, where she has played a key role as Chair of the Science Strategy Workgroup, and as a member of the Board of Directors with overall accountability for the scientific content of the organisation’s meetings.

Melanie is also Head of Screening, Profiling and Mechanistic Biology UK, and Global Compound Management at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Since joining GSK in 2005, she has held roles of increasing responsibility in a variety of small molecule discovery platform groups, leading teams to deliver high-throughput screening, lead optimisation profiling, assay development and mechanistic biology studies. Melanie has led numerous technology and capability development collaborations, particularly in the application of high-throughput mass spectrometry techniques for screening and compound profiling, a topic on which she has published a number of peer-reviewed articles. In her current role Melanie leads UK Assay Development and Compound Profiling capabilities, as well as the global Compound Management teams. 

Melanie’s first role as Chair will be to host ELRIG Drug Discovery Digital. The organisation’s first fully virtual conference includes a leading scientific programme of speakers, access to the latest technology breakthroughs, Early Career Professional development activities and the opportunity to connect and network with a diverse audience from across industry and academia.

Steve Rees, Former Chair of ELRIG UK and VP of Discovery Biology at AstraZeneca, said: “We are delighted to announce the election of Melanie as Chair. ELRIG has a critical role to play in creating the opportunity for scientists working in preclinical drug discovery in academia, the vendor community, contract research organisations, and large and small drug discovery organisations, to present their science, to network with peers and to establish new collaborations. Melanie brings a wealth of experience in drug discovery, laboratory automation, screening and sample management and I look forward to watching ELRIG grow under her leadership in the years to come.”

Melanie Leveridge, Chair of ELRIG UK and Head of Screening, Profiling and Mechanistic Biology at GlaxoSmithKline, said: “I am delighted and honoured to be taking up the position of ELRIG Chair. Now more than ever it is important that we keep connected as a scientific community, and ELRIG events provide the perfect mechanism for us to do that.

I would like to thank Steve for his exceptional leadership of ELRIG over the past four years. Under his guidance the organisation has gone from strength to strength, including an impressive series of successful events, networking opportunities, Early Career Professional programme and a strategic partnership with the British Pharmacological Society. The UK leads in biomedical science and ELRIG can be proud of the work that we do to support and sustain this community of scientists.

I am incredibly excited about ELRIG Drug Discovery Digital, which has everything you would expect from an ELRIG meeting with the added flexibility of tracks spread across eight days so you can choose the topics of most interest to you, without any conflicts.”

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