Ruth Campbell
LiveLabs Manager
“Dr. Shurene Bishop Simon has been an invaluable partner in managing biosafety in our communal laboratory. She has tackled numerous risk assessments and HSE notifications across a wide variety of projects with exceptional efficiency, ensuring we focused on the most critical points while helping us to avoid road blocks. She truly understands the needs and wants of start up biotech companies and helps us keep moving forwards safely. Her advice is always practical, clear, and actionable. Highly recommended for any organisation seeking expert, reliable biosafety support.”
Brigite Rodrigues
Technical Manager
“At Cellular Agriculture Ltd, speed matters. We’re committed to feeding the planet sustainably and safely, as quickly as possible. Bishop Simon helped us fast-track a critical biosafety compliance process. We were able to submit our application within two weeks and secure clearance just two weeks later. Their support saved us time, resources, and accelerated our progress toward our sustainability goals. Excellent value and highly recommended.”
Jayne Jones
Unit Manager
Clinical Diagnostic Parasitology
Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM)
“Working with Shurene was a seamless and reassuring experience during a particularly delicate laboratory situation. Her approach was methodical and rooted in sound professional judgment. She took the time to speak with all relevant individuals and provided a constructive report that contained practical, forward-looking solutions. The entire process was handled with a level of professionalism that inspired confidence across the team. It was genuinely a pleasure to collaborate with someone so respectful in their approach.”
Kalina Biernacka
Research Scientist
“Bishop Simon has supported our GM risk assessments and HSE notifications since 2023. Our work is inventive and unconventional, which naturally led to detailed queries from the HSE. Shurene guided us through every response with meticulous care, ensuring our biosafety management was clearly and confidently presented. Thanks to her support, we secured our HSE clearance and can continue advancing our groundbreaking technology. For biotechs tackling novel science, Bishop Simon is a valuable partner in achieving regulatory approval.”
Zoë Ayres, PhD, CChem
Head of Labs at Open University
Marcus Harrison
Chief Operating Officer
“As a growing spin-out, we needed to move beyond our initial safety and biosafety documentation and practices. Bishop Simon’s one-day on-site review gave us expert, evidence-based insights and clear priorities to strengthen our documentation and systems. It was practical, cost-effective, and exactly what we needed at this stage. We’d definitely recommend them to any company at a similar stage.”
Professor Jonathan Ball & Joanne Clague
“Our organisation undertakes high risk biological science research. It was therefore crucial to be supported by a consultancy firm with experience of high containment biological safety management. Bishop Simon understood our requirements and quickly implemented a rigorous programme of change. This was very well received by wider staff including the executive team. Some of the projects they delivered were: improving the Biological Safety Committee function, improving the programme of inspections, a gap analysis, and liaising with regulators on our behalf. Their leadership provided our organisation with a framework for lasting positive change.”
Maria Arabe
Laboratory Operations Manager
“We use Bishop Simon’s competent health and safety and biosafety advisory service. It is very reassuring to have access to advice from an experienced professional. Bishop Simon takes a pragmatic approach when providing solutions for our small and growing company. This service is suited to companies that need external advisory support.”
Marco Durante
Laboratory Operations Manager
“Bishop Simon has been supporting Ivy Farm since 2020 and I have worked with their Director (Shurene) in my role as Laboratory Operations Manager. Over the years we have used their auditing, inspection and training service. All were delivered to a very high standard. The most crucial service that I and the team benefit from is the on-going competent advisory support service. Ivy Farm is a very fast-pace and rapid growing company. It is therefore critical to the business that we have an advisor who responds promptly, clearly and with sufficient detail. This allows us to make fast progress with our objectives. Shurene ticks all these boxes and does all these! The service provided exceeds the small monthly cost. I highly recommend Bishop Simon’s on-going competent advisory service, as well other ad hoc services that you may require.”
Julie Morgan Dodds
Senior Technicians (Operations)
Durham University
“The course was very informative for anyone beginning to carry out laboratory work and enables one to write sops, induction process and risk assessments for would be lab users. The course was slow but enabled a good digestion of the material and for me this was the objective. To be able to work in a bio lab ensuring the safety of others and myself is more important than obtaining the qualification. Although having a certificate is proof of some knowledge in the subject area of biosafety”
Dr Aswin Doekhie
Co-Founder / Chief Technology Officer
EnsiliTech (Ensilicated Technologies Ltd)
“I was seeking a biosafety practitioner with a proven track record. My company needed to work
with one it could trust and who could move with speed to support us with our application to notify
the HSE of our intention to carry out class 1 GM activity. Speed and certainty were crucial to
take a product to market in as short a time as possible. Of the many personal and company
profiles we came across, Bishop Simon stood out for all the right reasons, and showcased its
ability to support biotech companies with GM safety matters. Within 1 month of working with the
organisation, we attained our GM centre number. We continue to work with Bishop Simon for
support with future successful notifications, as well as other biosafety requirements.”
Jelle Penders, PhD
CEO, CTO, Founder
About our IOSH Approved Biosafety Foundation E-Learning Course “…very comprehensive and clear and I passed with 100%”
Farhana Surti
Study Director Lead/ Deputy GLP Test Facility Manager
The Griffin Institute
“Thank you for your help in drafting the risk assessment, it’s been a good learning process“
Francesco Crea
Senior Lecturer, Director of Research at The Open University (School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences)
Open University
“Our group needed to work with some new genetically modified cell lines for a grant due to start soon. Dr Bishop Simon has been extremely helpful friendly and professional. She understood the time pressure and allowed us to complete all the necessary steps for approval on time. More importantly she took time to help us navigate all the important biosafety aspects of this work and to make sure we will be able to generate high quality results with these new models, in safe and controlled conditions.”
Jane Ball, CFIOSH, AIFireE
Head of Health and Safety at Open University
“The Open University was seeking a biosafety advisor for short to medium term support and our search led us to Bishop Simon. It was instantly apparent that they had the expertise to help us with the effective management of biological safety. Their first piece of work for us was an audit, making the process straightforward. The report was comprehensive and we found the action plan clear and most useful in outlining our next improvement steps.
We continue to be satisfied with their service, including genetic modification (GM) risk assessment reviews, GM committee advice and biosafety training and I’m happy recommend this company as a provider of interim biosafety support.”
Abdullah Sufan
Downstream Processing Manager
“Bishop Simon supported Ascend GCTx in performing health and safety and biosafety audits, biological risk assessments, and HSE notification for use of HG2 agents for microbiological applications over the past year. Shurene, our lead consultant, was accommodating and timely, and ensured support throughout the work package lifecycle, providing expert insight on health, safety and biosafety requirements and best practice. I would recommend the consultancy to other bioscience organisations.”
“We needed a biological safety officer to review our GM risk assessment for our first contained use activity. Because of our supply chain and customer deadlines, it was vital for us to work with someone who could deliver with speed and certainty. Having engaged with Bishop Simon on our challenges, we were very satisfied with the service they delivered. Dr Bishop Simon understood our project and time pressures. She was very responsive, accessible, and reliable. The application of her knowledge and expertise was key to our successful notification to the HSE. I am happy to work with Bishop Simon again and highly recommend their services.”
Dr Nitin Kamble
Senior Scientist
“Bishop Simon performed the essential role of reviewing our biological risk assessment prior to submission to the Health and Safety Executive. This was for the first use of a biological agent at our premises. We found Shurene to be experienced, responsive, and focused on our needs. Her expertise meant that our application was approved without objections. This enabled us to continue making progress in our research unimpeded.”
Amanda KP
Operations Manager
“Just over a year ago I was looking for a consultant with expert knowledge in the life sciences sector to help us improve our policies and ensure regulatory compliance. The search led us to Shurene and an initial meeting, followed up by an audit has led to engaging her as our Health & Safety and Biological Safety Officer Consultant. Shurene provides excellent and speedy support and guidance with effective feedback and points to consider for improvement. Her attendance and guidance at our monthly Health & Safety meetings is invaluable! I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Shurene to others.”
Sam H
Site Operations Manager
Shurene was highly recommended by a senior manager within our company, to help us identify our health and safety priorities before we started to expand our laboratory spaces and our research. She conducted a detailed Health and Safety Audit that allowed us to identify the steps to take to develop policies and practices to increase compliance, as well as to work more effectively. Putting her recommendations into practice helped to safeguard our reputation and allow us to continue our ground-breaking work of developing novel cancer therapies. The audit process was very calm and in no way stressful. I am very happy that we worked with Shurene and I have since recommended her to others.”
Steve Gardam
Director
“We were looking for an expert consultant to assist us with understanding our health and safety compliance status. We needed this information to inform our regular governance and assurance review process. Our search led us to Dr Shurene Bishops Simon. It was clear from our first conversation that she was focused on providing us with our needs, and she did this by pointing out the steps that we could take independently – there was no hard sell. This was a quality that we respect and found appealing and thus we decided to work with her consultancy: Bishop Simon. We were satisfied with the service provided at every stage of the health and safety audit process. The communication we received was clear, the advice was meaningful and the aftercare was thorough and thoughtful . Overall, the service was of fantastic value as the result exceeded our expectation. We were pleased with our decision to use the service of Bishop Simon, and would recommend the consultancy to our network.”