Awarded an Honorary Doctor of Technology in 2018 by the University, Professor Terry Wilkins is Europe's first professor of nanomanufacturing.
Professor Wilkins graduated with a Chemistry BSc degree from the Northern Polytechnic, a predecessor of London Met, in 1969.
Professor Wilkins has 35 years’ industrial and 13 years’ academic experience at director level (Amersham plc, the Nobel Laureate Christian de Duve’s Institute Université Catholic de Louvain, ICI PLC and the University of Leeds), as an innovator in high-value manufacturing for the medical device, biotechnology, nanotechnology, advanced materials and environmental engineering industries, yielding substantial economic and societal impact. Examples of his team’s innovations include: ~ 140 (nano) immunoassays for a wide range of diseases (including thyroid and prostate cancer), finding the cystic fibrosis gene, the world’s first DNA fingerprinting business and the world’s first hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) manufacturing business, which led to healing the hole in the ozone layer, according to the United Nations, European Commission and NSF joint report, 2016. His innovations have been recognised through multiple prizes including two Prince of Wales awards.
“I really wanted to be able to use leading-edge science and engineering to create new technologies to make a real difference to people’s lives. The University [London Met] gave me the theoretical and experimental tools to do this along with the self confidence that I could do it, but most importantly, the realisation that innovation can only be done by collaboration.”