Helen McCarthy

Professor at XapHe

Presenter

Professor Helen McCarthy has successfully supervised >40 PhD students to completion and mentored >15 Postdoctoral Fellows, all of whom continue to work across science and innovation. Helen is also a named inventor on >40 patents that involve 3 peptide delivery technologies for nucleic acids. Helen has published >200 research papers, all peer reviewed. Helen is highly collaborative with more than 20 academic groups from the US to Australia and back to Ireland; and in order to support other academics’ careers, she readily shares her technology for delivery of genetic cargo. After securing her Chair in Nanomedicine in 2016, Helen has had numerous, cross-university leadership roles, most recently as Dean of Postgraduate Strategy (2021-2022) and Associate Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Academic Business Development (2022-2024). In June 2024, Helen was appointed to the role of Northern Ireland’s first Chief Scientific and Technology Advisor (50% FTE). As CSTA, Helen provides scientific advice to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, works across the Executive, is an independent scientific voice, represents NI in the CSA network and advocates for science and technology across government policymaking. Helen has also recently been appointed by the Foreign Secretary and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to represent Science and Technology on the UK Soft Power Council. Helen is highly translational, having spun out her first company in 2017 to use peptides for the delivery of nucleic acids for mRNA vaccines. Her company was the first to use Invest NI’s innovation vouchers for Medicines Discovery Catapult consultancy, to win both INVENT and the All-Ireland Seedcorn Awards in the same year, and to design pharmaceutical formulation laboratories within Catalyst Innovation Centre. During her time as CEO (2017-23), Helen secured a portfolio of Innovate UK grants with >£10M as non-dilutive funding. Helen then co-founded her second company (XapHe) in 2024. In a first for Northern Ireland, XapHe has developed a bespoke platform technology designed via AI for the targeted delivery of mRNA to specific tissues and cells.