Ronan Kelly

Director Biology Protein Optimization at Eli Lilly

Ronan M. Kelly received his Ph.D. from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, in 2009 where he worked on protein engineering and structural/enzymatic characterization of carbohydrate-modifying enzymes. Shortly after, Ronan joined N.I.B.R.T, Dublin, as an Eli Lilly funded postdoctoral scientist where he explored CHO cell glycoengineering strategies to enhance the effector function of IgG1 mAbs. Ronan then moved to the technical mAb manufacturing team at Eli Lilly before transitioning to the cell line development group in Indianapolis. Here he focused on enhancing CHO cell line productivity while also streamlining the overall clinical cell line generation process, which played a key role in the acceleration strategy for the Lilly SARS-CoV-2 mAbs. More recently, Ronan leads a discovery team focused on the expression and purification of recombinant proteins from both mammalian and bacterial systems.