Douglas Bruce Kell PhD, CBE, FRSB, FLSW

Douglas Bruce Kell CBE FRSB FLSW is a British biochemist and Professor of Systems Biology in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Liverpool. He served as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) from 2008-2013. He was educated at St John's College, Oxford. He graduated from the University of Oxford with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biochemistry in 1975 followed by a Doctor of Philosophy in 1978 with a thesis on the Bioenergetics of Paracoccus supervised by Stuart Ferguson and Philip John. From 1978 to 2002 he worked at Aberystwyth University, moving to the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in 2002 as an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)/Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) Research Chair in Bioanalytical Sciences.

Kell's primary research interests are in systems biology and computational biology. According to Google Scholar, his most cited peer-reviewed research papers are functional genomics, metabolomics, and the yeast genome. He has also been involved in research to create a robot scientist in collaboration with Ross King, Stephen Muggleton, and Steve Oliver as well as several projects in systems biology. Kell's research has been funded by the BBSRC, other UK Research funders, and the European Union, as well as by industry. His former doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers include Pedro Mendes. His monograph Belief: the baggage behind our being which examines why people believe crazy things like Brexit was published in 2018. Kell was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to science and research. Kell is also a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB), and the Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAS).