Dr. Shirley O’Dea co-founded Avectas in 2012 and is the company’s Chief Scientific Officer, in addition to serving on the Board of Directors. Avectas is a cell engineering technology business developing a unique cell engineering platform, SOLUPORE®, to enable the ex-vivo manufacture of gene modified cell therapy products. Dr. O’Dea is charged with overseeing both the internal and external scientific programs as well as managing the IP portfolio. Avectas has raised $40 million to date and has more than 30 employees, most based in Maynooth while laboratory facilities were also recently established in Toronto, Canada. With an academic scientific career in cell biology research extending over 20 years prior to co-founding Avectas, Dr. O’Dea completed fellowships at University of Edinburgh Medical School and also served as a Principal Investigator for several industry collaborations.