The partners

	Philippe Stroot, PhD Executive manager
	Ursula Jenal, PhD Associate partner

Philippe Stroot

Philippe Stroot holds a PhD in biological sciences from the University of Namur, Belgium. After 7 years of academic research at the university and one year as a scientific expert for the Belgian federal administration, he joined GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals (SmithKline Beecham Biologicals at that time) in 1990 as International Vaccine Training Manager.

Appointed Biosafety Officer, Philippe established and managed the company's first biosafety programme in the R&D, Manufacturing and Quality Control departments from 1993 to 1997. During those years, he worked at developing and harmonising biosafety, radioprotection and waste management programmes, realised the first legal registration of the company's biological activities and collaborated with the engineering department to develop GSK Biologicals biocontainment design specifications.

From 1997 to 2005, he served as Operations Manager in R&D. During those years he managed the R&D infrastructure, including more than 10000 m² of biocontainment laboratories, and acted as the users' representative for the on-going construction projects. He also became responsible for co-ordinating health and safety programmes in R&D and started to work as a part-time independent biosafety expert.

In 2005 he joined the GSK Biologicals Corporate EHS team as Global Biosafety Manager. In this position, that he held until the end of 2006, he was in charge of implementing and co-ordinating the biosafety programme of GSK Biologicals worldwide.

Philippe launched his independent consulting activities in 2003, started his collaboration with Jenal & Partners in 2005 and founded Xibios in 2007.

Philippe has been a member of the American Biological Safety Association (ABSA) since 1993, was one of the founder members of the European BioSafety Association (EBSA) in 1996, a member of the Belgian Biosafety Professionals (BBP) since 2006 and joined the Asia-Pacific Biosafety Association (APBA) in 2007. He participated to different internal working groups and chaired BBP from 2009 to 2011. Philippe has also been active in various international working groups including the CEN Technical Committee on Biotechnology (TC233), served occasionnally as WHO Temporary Adviser and was one of the experts of the CEN workshops that produced the international 'Laboratory biorisk management' reference document CWA 15793 and developed the new CWA on Biosafety Professional Competence (CEN WS53).

Ursula Jenal

After obtaining her PhD as a microbiologist from the Swiss Institute of Technology (ETH), Zürich, Switzerland, in 1991, Ursula Jenal started her career as a scientist in charge of environmental risk assessment studies at Electrowatt Infra Ltd in Zürich (1991-1992).

With a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, she then undertook post-doctoral research at the Environmental Engineering & Sciences department of Stanford University, California (1992-1995) and was a visiting research scientist at the Centre for Microbial Ecology, Michigan State University (1995). She has been lecturing both at Stanford University and the University of Zürich (1996-2003).

In 1996 she joined the Swiss Agency for the Environment, Forest and Landscape where she acted as co-author of the Swiss Biotechnology Regulations. She was also responsible for the oversight and management of biosafety research projects and for the scientific evaluation of authorisation applications for the use of genetically modified organisms in contained systems, field releases and market products.

In 2001, Ursula Jenal, launched her own consulting company, now Jenal & Partners Biosafety Consulting, and joined what became Xibios in 2005.

Ursula Jenal has been representing Switzerland at the OECD working group on harmonisation of regulatory oversight in biotechnology. She has been a member of the European Biosafety Association (EBSA) since 1998 and has been acting as elected secretary and member of the council from 2003 to 2007. In 2004 she was asked to participate in the Forum Gene Technology of the Swiss Academy for Natural Sciences. She was also the co-chair of the CEN Workshop 53 (CEN WS53) that developed a new international agreement on the Biosafety Professional Competence.