Jonathan Wogel
Jonathan Wogel

Jonathan has over 30 years of executive leadership & boardroom experience in biotechnology & pharmaceuticals. He has worked with various blue-chip multinationals, including Baxter, Medtronic & Danone, as well as family-owned businesses & SMEs. He brings extensive financial, operational & business development expertise to Zentraxa, having delivered over 50 product development, joint venture & licencing deals, and led numerous mergers, acquisitions, and scale-up activities.
Martin Challand
Martin Challand

Martin co-founded Zentraxa in 2017 and is co-inventor of Zentraxa’s Zentide & adhesive peptide technology. He studied for a master’s degree in Chemistry and then a PhD in Chemical Biology at the University of Southampton, and has over 14 years R&D experience in chemistry & biology across academia & industry. Martin is the technical lead and has lead the company’s growth since incorporation by supporting business development & securing the backing of private investors.
Harriet Bray
Harriet Bray

Harriet has over 9 years’ experience in academic and industrial R&D. With a background in biomaterial characterisation & peptide design, she initially led Zentraxa’s research before transitioning to Chief Operations Officer. Working closely with the Executive Chair, Harriet now applies her experience of Project Management in industrial R&D to creating business development opportunities & developing investor relations.
Charlie Hamley-Bennett
Charlie Hamley-Bennett

Charlie studied for a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Bath and has over 10 years’ post-doctoral experience across academia and industry. She now applies her experience in biochemistry and process design to lead the bioprocess team improving and scaling our Zentide production process.
Jack Steventon
Jack Steventon

Jack is a multi-faceted research scientist and works across the materials formulation and process development teams. During his PhD at the University of Bristol, he designed enzymes, and applies this experience to optimise the Zentide technology and develop Zentraxa’s products.
Rahul Tripathi
Rahul Tripathi

Rahul is an experienced formulation scientist and manages our formulation team. He holds a PhD in Pharmaceutics from Indian Institute of Technology, BHU and has extensive experience in formulation development in pharmaceuticals, medical device/s and cosmeceuticals industries. He now applies his expertise to the application of Zentraxa’s products, increasing their efficiency to better meet market needs.
Lucy Speight
Lucy Speight

Lucy works on the process development team, specialising in the analysis and extraction of Zentraxa’s key ingredients. She completed an Integrated Masters in Biological Science at the University of Warwick, and conducted her Master’s project on the identification of genetic factors that allow bacteria to degrade pollutants.
James Murphy
James Murphy

James joined the team in July 2021 on a Kickstart placement before moving into his permanent role. James assists the materials formulation team in the development & optimisation of Zentraxa’s products. He studied a BSc in Forensic Biology at the University of Bournemouth.
Thea Irvine
Thea Irvine

Thea is our Fermentation Technician, and works on bacterial fermentation as part of our process development team. She completed a BSc in Biology and then a Research Masters at the University of Bristol, with a focus on optogenetics & protein expression.
Agnieszka Bucholc
Agnieszka Bucholc

Agnieszka is a cosmetic scientist in the materials formulation team, developing formulations and methodology for the analysis of Zentraxa’s products in Personal Care applications. She completed an Integrated Masters in Medicinal and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Loughborough University, and has Personal Care industry experience in formulation and skin care efficacy testing.

       Board & Advisors

Paul Race
Paul Race

Paul is Professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of Bristol, and a co-founder & director of Zentraxa. From 2014-17 he served as Co-Director of the >£14M Bristol Centre for Synthetic Biology Research (BrisSynBio), was a founding Director of the Bristol BioDesign Institute (BBI) and is academic lead for the >£2.7M EPSRC funded ‘Manufacturing Immortality’ project. His research focuses on the exploitation & manipulation of biological complexes, pathways & networks, en-route to the development of new tools, technologies & products for biotechnology.
Oliver Sexton
Oliver Sexton

Oliver manages the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund’s synthetic biology investments, supporting Zentraxa through financial backing. He has extensive commercial & partnering experience, having previously held board & partnership roles with, and managed the commercialisation of, numerous bioengineering & medical technology companies.
Jonathan Wogel
Jonathan Wogel

Jonathan has over 30 years of executive leadership & boardroom experience in biotechnology & pharmaceuticals. He has worked with various blue-chip multinationals, including Baxter, Medtronic & Danone, as well as family-owned businesses & SMEs. He brings extensive financial, operational & business development expertise to Zentraxa, having delivered over 50 product development, joint venture & licencing deals, and led numerous mergers, acquisitions, and scale-up activities.
Martin Challand
Martin Challand

Martin co-founded Zentraxa in 2017 and is co-inventor of Zentraxa’s Zentide & adhesive peptide technology. He studied for a master’s degree in Chemistry and then a PhD in Chemical Biology at the University of Southampton, and has over 14 years R&D experience in chemistry & biology across academia & industry. Martin is the technical lead and has lead the company’s growth since incorporation by supporting business development & securing the backing of private investors.
Harriet Bray
Harriet Bray

Harriet has over 9 years’ experience in academic and industrial R&D. With a background in biomaterial characterisation & peptide design, she initially led Zentraxa’s research before transitioning to Chief Operations Officer. Working closely with the Executive Chair, Harriet now applies her experience of Project Management in industrial R&D to creating business development opportunities & developing investor relations.
Andre Cardoso
Andre Cardoso

Andre is an experienced materials engineer and manages the formulation & application of Zentraxa’s peptide products. He holds a PhD in Chemistry and has extensive years of experience working internationally across the personal care, medical technology, household, defence & energy industries. He now applies his expertise to the application of Zentraxa’s products, increasing their efficiency to better meet market needs.
Jack Steventon
Jack Steventon

Jack is a multi-faceted research scientist and works across the materials formulation and process development teams. During his PhD at the University of Bristol, he designed enzymes, and applies this experience to optimise the Zentide technology and develop Zentraxa’s products.
Lucy Speight
Lucy Speight

Lucy works on the process development team, specialising in the analysis and extraction of Zentraxa’s key ingredients. She completed an Integrated Masters in Biological Science at the University of Warwick, and conducted her Master’s project on the identification of genetic factors that allow bacteria to degrade pollutants.
James Murphy
James Murphy

James joined the team in July 2021 and assists the materials formulation team in the development & optimisation of Zentraxa’s products. He studied a BSc in Forensic Biology at the University of Bournemouth, where his final year project compared the abilities of different chemiluminescent products in latent blood detection.
Thea Irvine
Thea Irvine

Thea is our Fermentation Technician, and works on bacterial fermentation as part of our process development team. She completed a BSc in Biology and then a Research Masters at the University of Bristol, with a focus on optogenetics & protein expression.

Board & Advisors

Paul Race
Paul Race

Paul is Professor of Biological Chemistry at the University of Bristol, and a co-founder & director of Zentraxa. From 2014-17 he served as Co-Director of the >£14M Bristol Centre for Synthetic Biology Research (BrisSynBio), was a founding Director of the Bristol BioDesign Institute (BBI) and is academic lead for the >£2.7M EPSRC funded ‘Manufacturing Immortality’ project. His research focuses on the exploitation & manipulation of biological complexes, pathways & networks, en-route to the development of new tools, technologies & products for biotechnology.
Oliver Sexton
Oliver Sexton

Oliver manages the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund’s synthetic biology investments, supporting Zentraxa through financial backing. He has extensive commercial & partnering experience, having previously held board & partnership roles with, and managed the commercialisation of, numerous bioengineering & medical technology companies.