Jeremy Tavaré is the founder Dean of the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Bristol.  This is a new Faculty that brings together the five Schools of: Biochemistry; Biological Sciences; Cellular and Molecular Medicine; Physiology, Pharmacology and Neuroscience; and Psychological Science.

He obtained his BSc and PhD degrees in Biochemistry at Bristol, which was followed an MRC Travelling Fellowship at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Dallas.  He returned to Bristol as a British Diabetic Association Senior Research Fellow and has held a Chair in Biochemistry since 1999.  His research interests are in the role of protein kinases in insulin action and in lung cancer and his work has been funded by grants from the Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, DiabetesUK, Cancer Research UK and industry. His total lifetime research funding income exceeds £50M.

He is Co-director of the Wellcome Trust-funded GW4 Clinical Academic PhD Training Programme for talented medical, veterinary and dental graduates, and is Principle Investigator of the Wellcome Trust-funded Institutional Translational Partnerships Award (iTP) which is focussed on improving translational of our life and health sciences research into societal impact through an integrated process of cultural change at all levels of the university from undergraduate to Professor.

In 2001 he cofounded the drug discovery company ProXara Biotechnology Ltd and was Non-executive Director of Bioganix plc between 2007 and 2009. 

He was Director of Bristol’s MRC Cell Imaging Facility for ten years and then Chairman of the Bristol Proteomics Facility, and Faculty Research Director for the Faculty of Medical and Veterinary Sciences from 2010 to 2012. He was the founder Director of the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute for Health Research at the University of Bristol and was Deputy Director of the £15M EPSRC-funded SPHERE (Sensor Platforms for Health in the Residential Environment) programme, a large interdisciplinary project which brings together engineers, clinicians, communities and patients to develop passive sensor systems to monitor people’s behaviour in their own home.  

Outside Bristol, he is Chair of the MRCs Non-Clinical Training Panel and member of their Training and Careers Group.  He was previously Deputy Chair of the MRCs Physiological Systems and Clinical Science Board and held two terms on the DiabetesUK Research Grants panel. He has served as external examiner at the University of Cambridge (1st Tripos and 2nd MB for medical and veterinary students) and University of Bath (Biology and Biochemistry 4 year MSc).

Outside of academia, he was a semi-professional cricketer for Gloucestershire CCC and even played at Lords for the Optimists Cricket Club (now Bristol CC) when they beat Kendle CC to win the 1992 National Club Championship! He became Chair of Bristol Cricket Club and is now a Trustee for the North Somerset Sports Club. He brings a lifetime involvement in team sport to bear on his leadership style as Dean of the Faculty.