Professor Fiona Watt obtained her DPhil from the University of Oxford, and carried out postdoctoral research at MIT, Cambridge, USA.

She established her first lab at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in London, and then moved to London Research Institute.

From 2006 to 2012 she was Deputy Director of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute and Deputy Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research, University of Cambridge.

As well as being the MRC’s Executive Chair Fiona is Director of the Centre for Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine at King’s College London where she leads a team of 80 academic researchers. Internationally recognised in her field, she has expertise in the stem cells of healthy and diseased skin.