Members

Professor Kathleen Liddell (Director of LML)

Kathy specialises in medical law, emerging technologies and intellectual property. Her research focuses on a variety of issues such as patent protection in the field of pharmaceuticals and medical diagnostics, tackling antimicrobial resistance, and the regulation of medical research and complex technologies such as genetic testing and stem cell products.

Professor Jeffrey Skopek (Deputy Director of LML)

Jeff’s research interests centre on advances in the biosciences that destabilize categories and concepts that play a foundational role in our law and ethics. He is currently working on projects that explore challenges posed by developments in personalized medicine, biobanking, and big data.

Dr Jennifer Cobbe

Jennifer is an Assistant Professor in Law and Technology in the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge. She is also Deputy Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law (CIPIL). She is generally interested in critical, interdisciplinary work on questions of power, political economy, and the law around internet platforms and informational capitalism, technological supply chains and infrastructures, and AI and automated decision-making.

Professor David Erdos

David’s current research explores the nature of Data Protection especially as it intersects with the right to privacy, freedom of expression, freedom of information and freedom of research. His expertise covers issues such as the regulation of health data, "big data" applications in the health sector, e-health, and the use of personal data for medical research.

Professor Stephen Gilmore

Stephen's research focus is family law.  With reference to medicine and the law, he has a particular interest in the law on assisted reproduction as it relates to legal parenthood, and in the law on children’s consent and refusal to consent to medical treatment in its relations to children’s autonomy and the concept of parental responsibility.  

Dr Stevie Martin

Stevie is a College Lecturer in Law and Fellow/Bye-Fellow at Fitzwilliam and King's Colleges. Her research examines the ways in which public law impacts upon, and can provide protections for, especially vulnerable sections of society. 

Professor Okeoghene Odudu

Oke’s work in the field of medical law focuses on the relationship between the market and the NHS; for example ideas of “competitive neutrality” and the applicability of competition law to NHS service providers. 

Dr Stephanie Palmer

Stephanie specializes in human rights, public law, and issues of medical law at the beginning and end of life.  She is also interested in public health regulation, including the regulation of lifestyle risks, such as obesity-inducing foods, alcohol and plain packaging of tobacco products.

Professor Michael Hopkins (Senior Research Associate)

Michael has over 25 years of experience researching the sociotechnical challenges of medical innovation. His current work focuses on the organisation of translational research, including measures to enhance university-industry collaborations, the emergence of the UK biotech sector including the financing R&D for drug discovery in small firms, and the policies needed to encourage R&D for novel antimicrobials to address AMR.

Dr Ira Chadha-Sridhar (Hatton-WYNG Junior Research Fellow in Law, Medicine and Life Sciences)

Ira's research lies at the intersection of law and philosophy, with a particular focus on the philosophy / ethics of care and its legal significance. Her work spans both general jurisprudence and the philosophical foundations of legal doctrine in medical law, tort law, and family law. Her current research project is a book, Care and the Mandate of Medical Law, which is under contract with Oxford University Press.

Professor Mateo Aboy (Director of Research)

Mateo is currently researching the status of information age inventions as patentable subject matter. A core component of this work is an in-depth quantitative analysis of trends in patent examination following key United States Supreme Court decisions affecting biomedical, biotech, computer and information process inventions, coupled with comparative study of European patent law.

Dr Cristina Crespo (Research Scholar)

Cristina’s research interests include the patentability of information-age and biotech inventions, and specifically analysing the impact of recent US Supreme Court decisions affecting these inventions on patent prosecution strategy and innovation. Cristina’s research at the LML concerns the design and implementation of empirical legal studies involving biotech and gene-related patent protection as part of the research project Realising Genomic Medicine: Intellectual Property Issues.

Dr Rumiana Yotova

Rumiana specialises in public international law and EU law, including international dispute settlement and investment law. She is particularly interested in the interaction of international law and other legal regimes such as EU law. In the field of medical law, Rumiana's interests include the extent of State powers to regulate for the protection of public health where this affects economic interests, for example in the case of plain tobacco packaging. She is also interested in the international regulation of the human genome and gene editing.

Mr Matt Jordan

Matt specialises in medical law and ethics and family law, with a particular focus on emerging assisted reproductive technologies and modern family formation. His PhD research uses the sociological concept of liminality to analyse the legal and regulatory architecture governing the human body throughout the life cycle.

Ms Emma Scott

Emma specialises in family law with a particular interest in judicial decision-making and children’s rights. Her PhD research explores the concept of Gillick competence, with a particular focus on how Australian judges apply the Gillick test in cases of children seeking gender-affirming care.

Mr Marno Swart

Marno is a PhD candidate in the Centre and a Harding Distinguished Post Graduate Scholar researching pain and pain management from an ethico-legal perspective. He holds the degrees BA, LLB, LLM (Pret) and MA (King's) and has previously researched reproductive rights, for which he still holds a keen interest.

Mr Rob Marsh

Rob’s main area of interest is family law. His PhD research is exploring how judges make decisions about whether to remove children from their parents’ care during careproceedings. He is also particularly interested in the law and parenthood, including the regulation of assisted reproduction and surrogacy arrangements.

Ms Natalie Kiilu (Research Projects Co-ordinator)

Natalie Kiilu is the Research Projects Coordinator for the LML. Having recently completed her LLM, she focuses on issues around pharmaceutical innovation and improving access to essential medicines in low-resource settings such as sub-Saharan Africa.