Fernanda Masri

Fernanda is a Chemical Engineer with a Masters and PhD in Biochemical Engineering from University College London (UK). Early on, her research interest focused on small scale predictive tools for downstream processing for cell therapies.

Fernanda worked briefly in cryopreservation of human cells for therapies and then moved to the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM) as a Process Development Engineer. At CCRM, she worked on upstream scalable production of human pluripotent stem cells in suspension for cardiac differentiation to downstream processing of lentivirus using stable inducible cell lines.

She worked as a Technology Expert for Regenerative Medicine at Sartorius where she helped to accelerate development and manufacture of cell and gene therapies, making them more readily accessible to patients all over the world. She then worked as a Solutions Manager for iPSCs (also at Sartorius) where she was responsible for developing and implementing a global portfolio of tools and services specifically geared to iPSC customers. She joined the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGTC) in March 2021 as the Head of Commercial for the Manufacturing Centre in Stevenage, where her team supported collaborators and other UK CGT manufacturing developers with innovative solutions to cell and gene therapy specific manufacturing and supply chain bottlenecks. In her current position at CGTC, as head of manufacturing innovation BD, she looks to help deliver and implement innovative solutions across all CGTC innovation sites. She looks to help the industry achieve cost effective, robust and efficient manufacturing of ATMPs by easing the implementation of new solutions in the digital space as well as technologies in the GMP suite.