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From Wellington boots to a world of Drug Discovery

When I graduated in 1996 with a BSc in Applied Biology, I knew I'd never be a great researcher. I was far too easily distracted! My first job was five months of maternity cover at Unilever, and my leaving gift confirmed it: a pair of Wellington boots! I'd often forgotten to close the tap on the 25-litre culture media container while filling up for another day's bacteriological testing of ice cream, so the lab floor was often a little wet. Yes, I know…

Time to gather my thoughts… After a carefree few years of backpacking around New Zealand and Australia, science and my newfound wife called me to (happily!) think more long term.

Skip forward 20 years in commercial scientific roles (yes, sales!), and in March 2021 my adventure into self-employment began.

It turned out to be quite a voyage of discovery. I was providing sales consulting and marketing for technology companies when I stumbled, quite by chance, into the world of spheroids and organoids. A Google search revealed a whole world of research I never knew existed, and then a YouTube video by Professor Hans Clevers really got me thinking.

Where do you go to find out more? What technologies can help? Who is interested in this work, who is doing the research, and why?

So, in 2022 I set up organoidspheroid.com. It was nothing fancy, just a basic off-the-shelf website with a very literal name! To my surprise, it seemed to strike a chord. People found it useful to have one place to find out more.

Around the world in 12 hours

But who were all these people? COVID was still lurking, so I focused on e-networking with people working in advanced cell model research, and as a result my LinkedIn connections grew from under 5,000 to around 16,000 as I write this. I wondered whether I could bring everyone together and help us all be better connected, and if so, how? I decided to try to reach them all at once. On 23 March 2023, I launched the first World Organoid Research Day (WORD), my first ever webinar!

I invited Hans, and thankfully he said yes! Then I looked around the world for speakers. We started in Sydney, where Scientia Associate Professor Shafagh Waters kicked off the day as our very first speaker, and headed east across the Pacific to Los Angeles, then on across the Atlantic to London. From there we carried on around the globe, finishing some 24,000 miles later back in Auckland, New Zealand. That was 12 hours of talks online. Yes, 12 hours! Each speaker shared their work in a very special 15 or 20 minutes. Researchers and technology companies all pulled together to learn and discover more.

Over 3,000 people joined and watched! It was a long day, but it was manageable thanks to technical know how from Zander Cornish-Moore and Jack Weston. And… WOW! That was fun.

Bringing everyone together

My thoughts turned to the next step: maybe we could get together in person? But where? And how much would it cost? $$$… Ouch. That's quite a commitment.

A very productive chat with friends from ELRIG.org gave me the confidence and backing to give it a go. That's how WORD+ was born at Hinxton Hall: a two-day meeting plus a half-day of training. It sold out! I haven't looked back since.

I approach every event as a party, albeit a more professional one. (Maybe I'm a frustrated party planner at heart. I do like a get-together!) My philosophy is simple: everyone should have a good time, break down barriers along the way and bring people together.

In 2024 I launched WORC.Community, the World Organoid Research Community. It brings practical tools, help and guidance together in one place for everyone working with organoids, organ-on-a-chip and advanced cell models. It all comes back to a shared passion for advancing medical science and reducing and replacing the use of animals in research.

#BetterTogether has become the WORC.Community tagline for good reason. It's the community of researchers, technology and service providers, regulatory bodies and many more that makes this such an ever-exciting place to work.

Giving back — and looking ahead

Giving back matters too. In 2025 we awarded our first research grant of £10,000 to support Dr Mhairi Morris's breast cancer research at Loughborough University. We continue to make donations at our larger events and always offer reduced-price tickets so that more researchers can attend.

Five years on from organoidspheroid.com, we're celebrating with WORD+2027. We return to Hinxton Hall on the Wellcome Genome Campus on 24–26 February 2027. As with all our events, the theme is Community. Connections. Collaboration. It's what this journey has been about from the very first day. This time there will be a particular focus on innovation and standardisation. Hans, whose video started it all, will be back to give the keynote, alongside 40+ speakers from academia, pharma and technology.

A huge thank you to everyone who has helped along the way: all the speakers who have so generously shared their work, all our sponsors and exhibitors, our friends at ELRIG, the wonderful team at Hinxton Hall, and everyone who has come along for the ride. None of this would have happened without you.

I hope to see you soon at one of our next events!