Speakers

Aline is Associate Vice-President for Enterprise and Chief Scientific Officer of Unit M at the University of Manchester as well as Professor of Biomolecular Engineering within the Faculty of Science and Engineering. She is Director of the NW Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Catalyst – a £5m flagship programme supercharging the growth of careers, business and our regional economy, while delivering sustainable products and processes. Her contributions were recently honoured with the 2025 Educate North Leadership and Innovation Award. Aline also sits on the Executive Committee for Sister, Manchester's new £1.7bn innovation district, a joint venture between The University of Manchester and Bruntwood SciTech.

Aline studied Chemistry at Strathclyde University and carried out her PhD research at Durham University, followed by postdoctoral work in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University where she held a Junior Research Fellowship with Murray Edwards College. In 2002, she joined Manchester as Lecturer and was promoted to Chair in 2014. In her role she has led academic and commercial R&D teams working at the life-science interface where her research interests converge on understanding the self-assembly of peptides, proteins and polymers across the length scales for material design and application. This work has led to several academic awards, including recognition from the Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society of Chemistry, Women in Engineering, The Leverhulme Trust and Great British Entrepreneur Awards. She has a strong track record of raising funds and translating academic research into the commercial and clinical setting through industrial collaboration with a range of industrial partners from SMEs to corporates, and through establishing a spin out company, Manchester BIOGEL. Under her leadership the company raised £4M+ in investment from Innovate UK, Venture Capital, Private and Catapult Venture Funds, grew to a team of 10 and became revenue generating. This led to Manchester BIOGEL being listed as one of the Top 10 BioTech Start-Ups in Europe by Start-Up City in 2021, winning Best New Life Science Product 2021 and navigating an exit, with the company IP being sold onto Cell Guidance Systems in 2023. She is now in the process of spinning out a second company, Molla Pharm, with her long term collaborators.