Mr. Paul Downey, General Manager, Abu Dhabi Biobank, M42 comes with 25+ years of experience in the field of biobanking having previously served as Chief Operations Officer for a decade at UK Biobank, wherein he was involved in strategic planning, set up, implementation and development of operations for such a greenfield project. He was associated with Medical Research Council UK, implementing the National Disease DNA Bank, and led the foundation of the service arm of UK Biocentre. 

Paul had extensive biobanking consulting expertise, most notably working for Imperial College London advising on design and operations of leading biobanks like Qatar National Biobank, Singapore National Biobank, Saudi Arabia National Guard Biobank and USA’s Kaiser Permanente Division of Research. Paul has been instrumental in driving evaluation antigen and antibody testing methodologies for the UK government during UK’s COVID response. 

Paul holds an MBA from Leicester University, with MSc in programme management from University of Oxford.