The Kennedy Trust is delighted to welcome four new Trustees to our Board: Professor Paul Peter Tak, Dr Edith Hessel, Professor Paul Emery and Dr Tony Wood. These recognised leaders in biomedical research and commercialisation bring a breadth of experience that will help to shape the Trust’s evolving strategy and continued commitment to funding world-class research.
Professor Paul Peter Tak is a prominent expert in Immunology. He is currently the President & CEO of Candel Therapeutics, which he took public on the NASDAQ. He is also Co-Founder and Board Director of Sitryx Therapeutics, Chair of the Board of Citryll and Board Director of Levicept.
He worked as Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Diego, Professor of Medicine and Chair of the Department of Clinical Immunology & Rheumatology at the Amsterdam University Medical Center (AUMC) and Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He was Program Director for the Clinical Rheumatology Fellowship and supervised 49 PhD students. He served on many editorial boards, including as Co-Editor of Arthritis & Rheumatology.
Next, Paul Peter joined GSK, where he was Senior Vice President, Chief Immunology Officer, Global Development Leader, and Chair of the Scientific Review Board. He oversaw the creation of a portfolio of new therapies for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, cancer, and infectious diseases, several of which have been approved by the regulators.
Paul Peter has also been Venture Partner at Flagship Pioneering, President and CEO of Kintai Therapeutics (merged with Senda Bio), and President and CEO of Tempero Pharmaceuticals (acquired by GSK).
He received his medical degree from the AUMC and was trained as an internist, rheumatologist, and immunologist at Leiden University Medical Center, where he also obtained his PhD. He received numerous awards and is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Dr Edith Hessel is a distinguished immunologist, entrepreneur, and drug developer, with over 25 years’ experience in drug discovery and company building. She has successfully pioneered novel target discovery platforms and advanced multiple therapeutics from inception to clinical proof of concept, both in biotech and pharma. Currently, she serves as Chief Scientific Officer at Relation Therapeutics, where she spearheads efforts to integrate high-resolution biology, machine learning, and clinical insights to discover transformative medicines.
Edith began her career in the Toll-like receptor field at Dynavax Technologies (California), before joining GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the UK as Vice President. At GSK, she conceived and established the Refractory Respiratory Inflammation Discovery Performance Unit, where she and her team developed cutting-edge approaches to target discovery, adding multiple therapeutic target programs to GSK’s pipeline. Notably, her laboratory discovered and developed nemiralisib, a PI3Kinase-delta inhibitor, achieving clinical success in acutely exacerbating COPD patients. Expanding her focus to fibrosis, Edith co-founded Mestag Therapeutics as Chief Scientific Officer, and later served as CSO at Eligo Bioscience in Paris.
Edith serves on the Board of the Fraunhofer ITEM Institute and was a Trustee on the Board of the British Society for Immunology from 2017 to 2024. She earned her PhD from Utrecht University and completed her postdoctoral training at DNAX Research Institute in California. In recognition of her scientific achievements, Edith was awarded an Honorary Professorship at the University of Manchester.
Professor Paul Emery is a leading rheumatologist and immunologist whose pioneering research on early intervention in inflammatory arthritis has changed treatment pathways and clinical outcomes around the world. Paul has been Versus Arthritis Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Leeds since 1995 and was Director of the Leeds NIHR Biomedical Research Centre 2009-2017.
Paul has previously served as President of EULAR, as the inaugural chair of FOREUM Executive, and on the editorial boards of all major rheumatology journals. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. Paul has been an NIHR Senior Investigator since 2008 and is the recipient of a number of prestigious awards including the Roche Biennial Award for Clinical Rheumatology, the Rheumatology Hospital Doctor of the Year award 1999, the EULAR prize 2002 for outstanding contribution to rheumatology research, and the 2012 Carol Nachman Prize. In 2018, he was made Master of the American College of Rheumatology and was awarded an OBE. In 2020, he received the Meritorious Service Award from EULAR and became Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales in 2021. In 2024, Paul was awarded a CBE for services to rheumatology.
Paul’s research interests centre around the immunopathogenesis and immunotherapy of rheumatoid arthritis, SpA, psoriatic disease and connective tissue diseases. He has a special interest in the factors leading to persistent inflammation. He is currently focusing on the prevention of autoimmune diseases with national programmes identifying patients in the pre-clinical phase.
Dr Tony Wood is a highly respected scientist and one of the world’s pre-eminent medicinal chemists, with more than 30 years of experience working across diverse disciplines of R&D to deliver innovative medicines. He joined GlaxoSmithKline from Pfizer in 2017 and became Chief Scientific Officer in 2022, responsible for GSK’s R&D strategy and innovation.
He has led large-scale global organisations in drug discovery and development in multiple therapeutic areas, including immunology, oncology and infectious diseases. Tony has been integral to delivering the recent improvements in GSK’s R&D productivity and central to developing its R&D approach focusing on science of the immune system, human genetics and advanced technologies. He built GSK’s functional genomics and AI/ML organisations from the ground up, and was the architect of collaborations with UK biotech Adrestia, Oxford University, and the Laboratory for Genomics Research with Jennifer Doudna.
Tony invented an HIV antiviral medicine for which he won several international awards including the PhRMA Discoverers Award, the Prix Galien USA, the ACS Heroes of Chemistry Award, and the UCB Ehrlich Award from the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry.
Tony is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, from whom he has also received an Honorary Fellowship, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology. He has a BSc in chemistry and PhD in organic synthesis from the University of Newcastle, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Imperial College, London.
Follow this link to read more about our Board of Trustees.
