Peak Proteins Welcomes Ailsa Townley
Peak Proteins welcomes Ailsa Townley who joins us as a Cell Culture Scientist. A Medical Science graduate, Ailsa is an experienced Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) pharmaceutical production scientist specialising in bacterial fermentation to produce DNA. She tried chemistry for a little while but wanted to return to working with the living!
Starting Life as a Medical Scientist:
Ailsa graduated with a degree in Medical Sciences from the University of Birmingham. During a summer placement and as part of her degree, Ailsa carried out research projects at the Institute of Biomedical Research in Birmingham in studying histone modification heritability and crosstalk.
Working as a Chemist:
After finishing her degree, Ailsa joined Eurofins as a chemist analysing food for nitrile/nitrate, fluoride levels, and elemental composition by mass spectrometry. While at Eurofins, Ailsa became a Representative of Employee Safety carrying out monthly health and safety checks.
Working for Cobra Biologics:
Having decided she preferred biology to chemistry, Ailsa joined Cobra Biologics where she carried out industrial Good Manufacturing Practice cell culture and plasmid protein production for clients in the pharmaceutical industry. Ailsa used a variety of cell culture systems including E. Coli, HEK 293, Super vero, CHO and T-Rex 293, specialising in large-scale E. Coli fermentations.
During her time at Cobra Biologics, she was also involved in the production of one of the first batches of the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID vaccine used in clinical trials. Cobra Biologics was acquired by Charles River in April 2021.
Joining Peak Proteins:
Ailsa commented, “I wanted to change career direction in a few ways, to be honest. Working for a smaller company appealed to me because there is more flexibility and possibilities to try new things. I also wanted to move away from the market end and more into the research side of drug discovery and development. The role in Peak Proteins seemed the ideal opportunity”.
Dr Mark Elvin, Cell Culture Principal Scientist added, “Ailsa’s experience in a wide variety of cell culture systems and at small and large scale will be a great asset to Peak Proteins. As we continue to expand rapidly, keeping the growing team of protein scientists supplied with cells needs a growing team of experienced cell scientists”.
Life Outside Work
Ailsa loves baking which hopefully will come in very useful for our Charity for the Year bake sale, and to keep active she started boulder climbing last year. Ailsa is an accomplished flautist and also enjoys playing the piano.
