Ludger Team

Direction

Dr Daryl Fernandes
Dr Daryl Fernandes
Chief Executive

Daryl is the founder and Chief Executive of Ludger. He gained his doctorate in structural analysis of biological oligosaccharides at the Glycobiology Institute, University of Oxford in the 1980s, was a consultant on biopharmaceutical glycoprofiling to Monsanto and G.D. Searle and helped spin out Oxford GlycoSciences (OGS) from the University. OGS was the third high-technology company to spin out of Oxford University and specialised in glycoanalysis products and services for biopharma.
Daryl founded Ludger in 1999 to develop and exploit glycomics technology for medical applications. His focus has expanded to three main areas:

1. Biopharmaceutical realisation. This centres on glycotechnologies and streamlined Quality-by-Design (QbD) workflows for development and production of safer, more effective and more affordable glycoprotein therapeutics.

2. Medical glycomics for chronic diseases. The main activities in this area are development of glycomics-based methods for early warning identification and stratification of chronic diseases (CDs). Daryl's emphasis is on five main groups of CDs: metabolic and endocrine disorders, inflammatory conditions, cardiovascular diseases, cancers and degenerative diseases of the brain.

3. Precision healthcare. This includes development of a framework for effective and affordable selfcare pathways for increased healthspan by slowing or preventing progression of chronic diseases. The aim is to provide a model of true preventative healthcare that can deliver lasting improvements in the health trajectories of individuals at population scale using lifestyle medicine. The current focus is on self-care pathways for diabetes prevention focussing on Type 2 and gestational sub-types of diabetes. These models will be exploited via a collaboration with Avenna Ltd - a sister company to Ludger.

In addition to glycotechnology, Daryl has keen interests in medical applications of graph theory, human evolution and ethnobiology. He's also more than slightly obsessed with fat bellies (i.e. central adiposity) - where they come from and how to get rid of them without fuss.

Daryl's short biography

Paul Plume
Paul Plume
Chief Operating Officer

Paul joined Ludger in 2017 with twenty years’ industrial experience predominantly in the Medical Device industry, with a bias towards Operations & Engineering. Paul worked for Abbott in the Diabetes Care Division and for ArjoHuntleigh in the Patient Handling, Pressure Area Care & DVT sector. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from Leeds University and also completed an Advanced Course in Design, Manufacture and Management (ACDMM), University of Cambridge.
Paul is responsible for supporting all personnel at Ludger in order to support and develop the glycobiology expertise. The challenge to drive this is to:

  • provide products to the Biopharma industry that support the next generation of drug development
  • research chronic diseases and how glycomics can support treatments and develop biomarkers
  • research the lifestyle factors that impact chronic diseases with the aim of developing precision medicine self-care pathways
Paul’s previous experience has covered the negative aspects of sugar having worked in the sugar industry and in the diabetes space. Paul is excited at the prospect of working with sugars in a positive aspect and showing how Ludger can help human healthcare.




Business Development - Contact Us

Archana Shubhakar
Archana Shubhakar
Head of Business Development

Archana has a many years of PR experience as well as analytical glyco-technology experience. She has been part of Ludger since 2011. As a Business Development Lead she is responsible for developing client relationships, following up new business opportunities for Ludger’s products and services, directing marketing campaigns and overseeing global sales. In addition, Archana can be contacted to set up contracts including CDAs and service agreements. Over the several years of working at Ludger, Archana has worked and gained experience as a Scientist, Project Manager (Innovate UK project) and as a Senior Scientist within the research and development team. Her research involvement and accomplishments have been the implementation and development of high throughput analysis and robotization for N-glycan release, glycan derivatization and analysis using orthogonal analytical platforms. She has been involved in market research, communication with other consortium members and project coordination of some of Ludger’s research projects and grants. She is at the final stages of completing her PhD in collaboration with the Department of BioAnalytical Chemistry at Vu University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands under the supervision of Dr. Daryl Fernandes and Prof. Dr. Manfred Wuhrer. The title of her PhD thesis is 'Method development for the discovery of glycosylation biomarkers of inflammatory diseases'.

Omar Cardenas
Omar Cardenas
Business Development Executive

Omar joined Ludger in March of 2021 to foster customer relationships and implementing commercial strategies for lead generation. He is responsible for the creation of digital content and the execution of online marketing campaigns. Omar has significant experience implementing business optimisation strategies for multinational organisations from his previous role as a Business Strategy Consultant, and holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Biopharmaceutical Biotechnology and Entrepreneurship from the University of Nottingham

Cindy Li
Cindy Li 李慧 - QQ: 170439096
Ludger China - Sales Executive

Cindy is responsible for processing Chinese customer orders and preparing them for shipment. She keeps in touch and follows up with current and prospective customers to see if they have any additional needs or concerns.

Lily Wang
Lily Wang 王丽 - QQ: 258363672
Ludger China - Technical Sales Executive

Lily is responsible for sales of Ludger services and products, also directing Ludger China's marketing development. She is dealing with process Chinese clients' orders and their technical problems. She works closely with current and prospective clients to find out their potential needs. She has a background in Biochemistry and molecular biology.




Research & Development

Dr Daniel Spencer
Dr Daniel Spencer
Head of Development

Daniel has over 24 years of experience with HPLC and mass spectrometry-based techniques for analysis of complex carbohydrates. Having joined Ludger in 2003 Daniel oversees the development of new tools for glycan analysis as well as directing the Grant-funded activities of Ludger. Daniel is a Principal Investigator in several pan-European PhD research consortia with responsibility for coordinating the training of Early Stage Researchers in both their technical and complementary skills. 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.

Dr Conception Badia Tortosa
Dr Concepcion Badia Tortosa
Lead Scientist

Concepcion (Conchi) joined Ludger in 2010 as a Marie Curie Fellow within the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) EuroGlycan Arrays Project. Currently, she is a Senior Scientist at Ludger working within the Development team. With extensive experience in chemistry she is involved in the development of new techniques for glycan and glycopeptide analysis for HPLC and MS platforms, including the synthesis of new potential dyes, as well as in method development that contributes to the improvement of Ludger's production and glycoanalytical services including high throughput Sialic Acid analysis. She also has been involved on the quantification of Lurdger’s glycan standards using NMR, sialic acid analysis and monosaccharide analysis. Conchi studied Chemistry at Jaen University (Spain) where she also obtained her Master's Degree. She gained her PhD in Organic Chemistry at the Institute of General Organic Chemistry-CSIC in Madrid (Spain).

Dr Jack Cheeseman
Dr Jack Cheeseman
Scientist

Jack graduated with an MCHEM from the University of Reading in 2017. After graduation, Jack joined the University of Reading Department of Pharmacy as a PhD student with Ludger as an industrial partner. His PhD project titled 'Sialic Acids as Biomarkers for Cardiovascular Disease’ focussed on the chemical synthesis of acetylated sialic acid derivatives and their subsequent utilisation as quantitative standards in the analysis of human plasma via liquid chromatography. Jack joined Ludger in 2022 as part of the research and development team. His current work now focusses on the development of high-throughput plate-based assays for the analysis of sialic acids and other biomarkers. Jack also works on development of collaborations with external partners to facilitate access to clinical samples, grants and wider areas of expertise.

Georgia Elgood-Hunt
Georgia Elgood-Hunt
Bioinformatician

Georgia obtained her integrated master’s (Msci) in cellular biology and mathematics at University College London (UCL) in 2021. During her master’s she focused on the use of bioinformatics to predict immune cell receptor specificity. Georgia joined Ludger ltd in 2021 as a Bioinformatician in the Development team. Her work focusses on the data analysis and modelling.

Dr Ashfaq Ahmad
Dr Ashfaq Ahmad
Scientist

Ashfaq earned his undergraduate degree in Biotechnology from the University of Swat in 2016. He then pursued an MSc in Molecular Biology from Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB), KU Leuven, and Universiteit Antwerpen as part of the Interuniversity Program, graduating in 2019. Following his studies, Ashfaq joined the University of Warwick as a Marie-Curie Early-Stage Researcher and began his PhD journey as a part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie NanoCarb consortium.

During his doctoral research, titled "Glycosylated Nanoparticles and their Interactions with Lectins," Ashfaq focused on the recombinant production of carbohydrate-binding proteins, known as lectins, and their subsequent interactions with glycosylated nanoparticles. His work also involved analysing the glycoprotein corona of nanoparticles and exploring the diagnostic potential of glycosylated nanoparticles. He was part of the team at University of Warwick, who developed the first-of-its-kind glycan-based flow-through device for the detection of SARS-COV-2.

In 2023, Ashfaq became a part of the research and development team at Ludger. His current focus is on establishing protein biochemistry laboratories at Ludger, with a particular emphasis on developing robust protocols for the expression and purification of glycan-binding proteins, including carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes). Additionally, he is also involved in the development of high-throughput plate-based assays.




Human Performance Lab

Dr Christel Gudberg
Dr Christel Gudberg
Human Performance Lab Lead

Christel is a Neuroscientist and Psychologist. She gained her doctorate in Clinical Neurology and Neuroscience from the University of Oxford, specialising in the role sleep plays in brain plasticity and memory formation. Before this, she completed her clinical psychology training in Denmark at the University of Aarhus. Christel currently works on the development of new precision medicine approaches and technologies at Ludger and leads its recently launched Human Performance Lab.




Finance - Contact Us

Ludger - Mandy Stewart
Mandy Stewart
Finance Manager

Mandy deals with general accounting including journal entries, maintaining 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.

Ludger - Philippa Elcock
Philippa Elcock
Finance Administration Assistant

Philippa supports the Finance Manager with day to day tasks such as SAP data entry including invoice, incoming/outgoing payment and entering expenses. Also assisting with Payment runs, customer statements and Credit control.




Glycan Analysis Services

Radoslaw Kozak
Dr Radoslaw P. Kozak
Head of Glycoprofiling

Rad joined Ludger in 2008. As Head of Glycoprofiling Analytical Services Rad is responsible for managing and directing contract glycan analysis. He has over 10 years of experience in analytical glycobiology in HPLC/UPLC, MALDI-MS and LC-ESI-MS analysis of O-glycans, N-glycans, glycosphingolipids and glycosaminoglycans. At Ludger he has worked as a Scientist and Senior Scientist within development and glycoprofiling teams and was involved in the development of new techniques for glycan release and derivitization for MS and HPLC/UPLC and biopharmaceutical glycan profiling. Rad obtained his Master of Science degree in Organic Chemistry at the University of Warsaw, Poland in 2007. In 2016 he gained a PhD in Glycobiology from the Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry Unit, Department of Parasitology of the Leiden University Medical Centre in Leiden, The Netherlands. During his PhD he was involved in the development of rapid and sensitive methods for the analysis and identification of O-glycans.

Paulina Urbanowicz
Paulina Urbanowicz
Lead Scientist

Paulina gained a Master's Degree in Biotechnology at Wroclaw University of Technology in Poland. Her previous experience gained from the Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy of the Polish Academy of Sciences involved studies on phage proteins and their impact on the exopolysaccharides of pathogenic bacteria. Paulina joined Ludger as a R&D Scientist in 2013 and has been involved in a number of projects that contribute to the improvement of Ludger's glycoanalytical services covering N- and O-glycan release, enzyme-based characterisation, derivatization of glycans and glycopeptides and analysis using orthogonal analytical platforms including UHPLC, Mass Spectrometry and microplate assays. Now a Senior Scientist, Paulina focuses on providing commercial exploitation of techniques for glycosylation analysis of biopharmaceuticals and biological samples.

Enea Jorgji
Enea Jorgji
Scientist

Enea joined Ludger in January 2023 as part of the Glycoprofiling Analytical Services team. His work involves analytical testing on various glycoproteins, cell lines and biological fluids. Enea holds a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Sciences (2019) and an MSc by Research in Microbiology (2021) from University of Kent. His research master’s was focused on utilising various microbiological and biochemical approaches to develop human anti-fungal drugs by exploiting natural metabolites and chemical components of yeasts. In 2022 he graduated with a MSc in Molecular Biosciences from University of Bath. His master's studies involved applying bioinformatics to determine the impact climate change has on fungal pathogenicity and global distribution, and the emergence of new invasive fungal infections in humans.




Operations

Carol Murray
Carol Murray
QMS Lead

Carol joined Ludger in 2005. As Head of Production Carol ensures all Ludger glycotechnology kits and reagents are manufactured to a consistent high standard and that stock levels are maintained. She is also involved in shaping the production procedures for new products, working with Development and Business Development to support the transition from Development to a finished product. Carol also liaises with all activities including Sales, QMS, H&S and process improvements. She was previously Laboratory Manager at Ludger and Cancer Research UK, and has worked in Production and Glycoanalytical services at OGS.

John Froude
John Froude
Facilities & Procurement Manager

John 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.

Ludger - Andy Murray
Andy Murray
Logistics & Procurement Officer

Andy is responsible for processing all worldwide customer Sales orders, preparing them for shipment and solving any shipment issues. He also ensures the smooth running of the Purchase order and goods receipt/issue side of the business.




Production

Dr Richard Gardner
Dr Richard Gardner
Head of Production

Richard joined Ludger in 2005 as a Senior Scientist and has over 13 years of experience in glycoanalytical chemistry and analytical glycobiology. As an integral part of the Development team, he has been developing methods for enzymatic and chemical glycan release for UHPLC, LC-ESI-MS and MALDI-TOF analysis of biopharmaceutical glycoproteins (including mAbs (IgG and IgE), FSH, EPO, HCG and biosimilars) and glycomics samples (blood and plasma). He leads the High Throughput Analytical group and has developed and implemented a GX-mAb glycosylation service (HTP glycoanalysis of antibodies) for biopharmaceutical clients, as well as a HTP method for the analysis of inflammation biomarkers within plasma which is being used in Ludger’s Precision Medicine programmes. Richard is also responsible for glycoanalytical work for R&D collaborations. Richard works within multiple grants funded by the EU (including High Glycan FP7, IBD-Biom, GlyCoCan, GlySign and A4B), and is responsible for training and supervising scientists and PhD students to enable them to perform glycoanalytical techniques and automated methods. Richard gained his doctorate in Bio-organic Chemistry at the University of Leicester with a post-doctoral position in Organic Chemistry at the University of Central Florida and previous industrial experience at Evotec in their Process Research and Development department.

Dave Pepper
Dave Pepper
Scientist

Dave works within the Glycan Production team as a Protein Purification scientist. He joined Ludger in 2012 and current responsibilities include the 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.

Ludger - Efthymia Toupou
Efthymia Toupou
Production Technician

Efthymia (Efi) joined Ludger’s Production team in January 2020 as a Production Laboratory Technician. She is involved in the production of all catalogue products within the company, following SOPs. Efi also liaises with quality control and supports the development of new products at Ludger. Her previous work experience includes working as a medical laboratory assistant in a hospital as part of her bachelor’s degree at University of Thessaly (Greece).

Dusty Young
Dusty Young
Laboratory Assistant

Dusty has worked in a variety of roles in logistics, including exporting, stock control, materials planning, transport, retailing and warehousing. In his previous employment, he performed soil analysis in the laboratory for potential construction works. Dusty joined Ludger in May 2022 as a part-time Laboratory Assistant and is involved in production of Ludger catalogue products.