Herchel Smith Reader in Intellectual Property Law and Medical Law
Director of the Centre for Law, Medicine and Life Sciences, University of Cambridge

Kathy Liddell’s research focuses on health, medicine and society, with the aim of understanding and improving the legal frameworks that govern and support improvements in this field. She is an expert in intellectual property and information governance in the field of life sciences and has been the principal investigator for several large projects on intellectual property rights and bioinnovation, including in relation to genomics, precision medicine, repurposing pharmaceuticals, and antimicrobial resistance. She has a special interest in the regulation of emerging health technologies.

Professor Liddell has worked on policy reports for national health departments, national ethical advisory commissions, and the European Commission. She is the recipient of grants from (for example) the Wellcome Trust, the Philomathia Foundation, the Cambridge ESRC-Impact Acceleration Account, and the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

Her expertise extends to other areas of life sciences including national and international regulation of medical negligence, mental capacity, informed consent, clinical trials, biomaterials (including human tissue, cells, organs), the European GDPR, biodata (including large biobanks), pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and personalised and regenerative medicine.

Professor Liddell uses a wide range of interdisciplinary methodologies in her research including interviews, surveys and patent mapping.

She studied law and natural sciences at the University of Melbourne before undertaking a Masters of Bioethics at Monash University and her doctorate in law at the University of Oxford. In addition to academia, Dr Liddell has worked in private legal practice and in the civil service.