Ludger Staff

Dr Daryl Fernandes
is the founder and Chief Executive of Ludger. Daryl has over twenty five years experience in development of glycoanalysis methods for glycoproteins of the immune system and biopharmaceuticals. He gained his doctorate at the Glycobiology Institute, University of Oxford, was a consultant to Monsanto and G.D. Searle, and went on to become Process Development Manager and then Head of Analytical Services at Oxford Glycosciences (OGS). Daryl helped develop the hydrazinolysis chemistry used in the OGS GlycoPrep 1000 automatated hydrazinolysis instrument which was used for characterisation and QC of biopharmaceutical glycosylation by many biopharmaceutical companies throughout the US and Europe. Daryl left OGS to found Ludger in 1999. His aim for the company is to develop and manufacture reliable glycoprofiling technology for the design and production of biopharmaceuticals.
Daryl's short biography

Dr Claire Morgan
Claire is the Business Development Manager at Ludger Ltd. She is responsible for following up new business opportunities and communicating new product developments to clients. Claire also also oversees the company’s marketing campaigns. At Ludger Claire works closely with the Sales Department within Ludger to analyse sales and implement new strategies. Claire has a background in immunology, gaining a PhD at The Royal London Hospital Medical College (University of London) and with Post Doctoral experience at the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Trust (the Royal Free Hospital, London) and the Immunopathology Department at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Claire has also worked for several years at the scientific events company EuroSciCon where she was in charge of Marketing and PR.

Dr Mark T Johnson
Mark is U.S. Technical Sales Consultant for Ludger Ltd., U.K. Mark works closely with the Business Development and Sales Departments at Ludger. Previously Mark worked in the same capacity for Associates of Cape Cod (ACC), East Falmouth, MA.  At ACC Mark gained valuable knowledge of GMP validation requirements while developing valuable relationships with U.S. customers who were setting up glycoprofiling methods.  Mark's technical background includes biochemistry, enzymology, protein structure, and HPLC.  He received the PhD Degree in Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN.   After graduating Mark was hired by New England Nuclear (NEN), Boston, to set up preparative HPLC purification methods.  NEN was purchased first by DuPont and then by Perkin Elmer Life and Analytical Sciences.  As Fellow Scientist at Perkin Elmer Boston, Mark developed and optimized their enzymatic synthesis methods and wrote highly specialized project plans and proposals for their custom synthesis customers.  Through these jobs, Mark has gained broad understanding of structures, functions, and analysis of therapeutic glycoproteins and antibodies. 

Dr Louise Royle
Louise is Head of Glycoprofiling at Ludger. Louise has over twelve years experience in analytical glycobiology, particularly in HPLC and LC-MS analysis of O-glycans, N-glycans and glycosphingolipid head groups. She spent eight years working with Prof. Pauline Rudd and Prof. Raymond Dwek at the Oxford Glycobiology Institute before spending a year in Ireland at NIBRT as head of the analytical group. Louise is particularly interested in making glycan analysis robust and rapid. She is an author on over 80 peer-reviewed articles, over 55 of which are on glycobiology. She graduated in Biochemistry from Manchester University before working at the Medical Research Council Radiobiology Institute and then gaining a PhD in Chemistry from Durham University on radio-immunotherapy and imaging. She also spent 3 years at Reading University developing Capillary Electrophoresis methods for the analysis of foodstuffs.

Dr. Daniel Spencer
Daniel is Head of Development at Ludger, with responsibility for developing into readily usable kits new methods in glycoanalysis. Daniel gained his PhD in 1997 at the University of Nottingham working on mucin O-glycans. He then worked at University College London for several years on a project to reduce the immunogenicity of a cancer therapeutic and performed N-glycan analysis before moving into the field of mass spectrometry in industry. Daniel founded the glycoanalytical services at Ludger and has many years experience in HPLC and mass spectrometry based techniques for analysis of complex carbohydrates.

Dr Richard Gardner
is Senior Chemist at Ludger with expertise in chemical glycan release methods, including both N-glycan and O-glycan release, and glycan derivatization for MS and HPLC analysis. He is also responsible for biopharmaceutical glycoprofiling projects. Richard has an extensive chemistry background and gained his doctorate in bio-organic chemistry at the University of Leicester with a post-doctoral position at in organic chemistry University of Central Florida.

Dr Concepcion Badia Tortosa
Conchi is a EuroGycan Arrays Fellow at Ludger under the Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013. She is involved in developing new techniques for glycans and glycopeptide purification. She is also working in glycan quantification. Concepción gained her PhD in Organic Chemistry at the Institute of General Organic Chemistry-CSIC in Madrid (Spain).

Dr Li Phing Liew
Li Phing is a glycoprofiling scientist working in all aspects of glycan analysis. Li Phing gained her DPhil from the University of Oxford in the study of the functions of telomere-linked helicase genes in fission yeast. Before joining Ludger, she worked as a post-doctoral researcher investigating the
molecular machinery for the processes of DNA replication in archaeal cells.

Simon Peel
Simon works for Ludger as a Chemistry Technician. He is involved in Glycan production and analysis. His previous experience includes several years as an Analytical Chemist in the pharmaceutical industry and also as a HPLC Service Engineer.

Dave Pepper
David works at Ludger as a Protein Purification scientist. His duties lie within release, production and analysis of glycans. His previous experience includes a degree in biology followed by several years of pathobiology work and nearly a decade of molecular and cell biology research at both Reading and Oxford Universities.

Motunrayo Sotannde
Motunrayo is a Scientist at Ludger. She works within the Glycan Production group evaluating and developing protein purification methods, glycan production and performing routine QC analysis. She has many years experience working at Wolfson Gene Therapy Unit, University College London in an MHRA licensed GMP facility and Quality Control laboratory producing genetically modified viral vectors for pre-clinical and clinical studies. Also, her previous experience in proteomics involved the study of cytokine isoforms in cancer cell lines.

Radoslaw Kozak
Rad is a Chemist at Ludger, working on chemical glycan release methods including O-glycan and N-glycan release and glycan derivatization for HPLC analysis. Rad also works on new product development. Rad has a degree in organic chemistry and is studying for a PhD..

Archana Shubhakar
Archana is a Scientist at Ludger. She works within the Development Team, taking new glycobiology products from initial research to final product launch. As Ludger is a member of the European High Glycan Consortium, her work also involves market research, communication with other consortium members and coordination of in house research projects.

Robert Emery
Robert is a Glycoprofiling Technician. He performs the analyses for N-glycans, O-glycans, monosaccharide and sialic acids within the Glycoprofiling group. Robert gained his degree in Forensic Science from the University of Lincoln in 2009 and worked in the Forensic industry for a year before joining Ludger.

Carol Murray
Carol is Head of Production at Ludger, ensuring all Ludger Glycotechnology kits and glycans are manufactured to a consistent high standard and that stock levels are maintained, as well as being involved in shaping the production procedures for new glycotechnology products. She was previously Laboratory Manager at Ludger and Cancer Research UK, and has worked in Production and Glycoanalytical services at OGS.

Deirdre McGill
is a Production Technician who works with Louise Peedell on manufacturing of the Ludger glycoprofiling kits and reagents. Deidre's scientific training includes a degree in biochemistry.

Louise Peedell
Louise is a member of the production team manufacturing Ludger’s glycotechnology products. She also works with the development team with the development/ manufacture of new products. As well as laboratory work, Louise is the Health and Safety assistant to Mick Charlesworth, Head of Health & Safety, and works with other members of staff on the Health and Safety committee and documentation.

Karen Oakes (Formerly Karen Pearce)
Karen is the Sales Manager at Ludger. Karen works closely with the sales administrator to ensure smooth running of the order processing & shipment side of the business, having been directly responsible for processing the orders and preparing them for shipment previously. She is responsible for preparing catalogue product quotations, sales analysis reports, inventory reports and analysis for distributors, Karen also works closely with business development.

Rosa Charlesworth
Rosa is the Company Secretary and Administrator at Ludger. As part of this role Rosa is responsible for Human Resources and coordinates legal documents.

Magdalena Sharma
Magda works in Accounts at Ludger. She is dealing with general accounting including journal entries, maintainig balance sheet schedules, ledgers and bank reconciliations.She is also responsible for applying accounting principles and procedures to analyze financial information, prepare accurate financial reports and statements and ensure appropriate accounting control procedures.

Kerry Warr
Kerry is the Sales Administrator at Ludger. She is responsible for processing all worldwide customer orders and preparing them for shipment. Kerry also assists with day to day administration in the Sales and Finance departments.

Mick Charlesworth
Head of Health and Safety; responsible for developing Ludger's systems and training schedules for Health and Safety. Mick has considerable experience in this area. He has worked as a parachute instructor in HM Forces and has implemented safe working practices in a major international construction company. Mick is also the IT Manager for Ludger.

John Froude
John is the Laboratory and Facilities Manager at Ludger. He is responsible for the maintenance of our Laboratory equipment, the building fabric and running the non scientific services. John has more than 20 years experience as a Facilities manager for a varied range of organisations from pharmaceutical companies to central government.

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