Dr Megan Webster
Principal Scientist, Head of Lung Development
Working at Newcells Biotech since November 2020, Dr Megan Webster is the Head of the Lung and leads both lung development work and commercial studies. Megan has a strong interest in developing in vitro models which recapitulate disease processes and physiology and their application to drug discovery.
Before joining Newcells Biotech, Megan’s PhD studies focused on intestinal drug transport and absorption in collaboration with the DMPK department at AstraZeneca. Following her PhD Megan completed her post-doctoral studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Megan’s research focused on the therapeutic modulation of ion transport in the upper airways, with a specific focus on Cystic Fibrosis disease modeling.
Megan then transitioned to industry and worked as a Scientist within the Immunology & Respiratory department at Boehringer-Ingelheim where she designed and lead drug discovery programs ranging from PoC through to lead optimization. At Boehringer-Ingelheim, Megan further developed her knowledge of lung disease, with a primary focus of IPF/ILD and application of in-vitro models for drug discovery.
Megan successfully led the development and launch of Newcells Fibroblast-to-Myofibroblast Transition (FMT) assay and continues to lead the development of a small airway model and an iPSC-derived model of the human pulmonary alveoli.
