Julie MENEELY obtained her BSc (Honours) in Applied Biochemical Sciences at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown in 1994. Since that time she has been employed in both the public and private sectors and has over eleven years of experience in research and development. From 1996 until 2000, she worked for Queen’s University Belfast based at Veterinary Sciences Division as a Research Associate involved in various research projects including a highly successful EC 4th Framework Project (FoodSENSE). From 2000 to 2006, Julie was Production Manager/Senior Research Scientist at XenoSense supervising the manufacture and quality control of Qflex diagnostics and was also active in steering research and product development projects through to launch. In 2006 she returned to Queen’s University Belfast as Project Manager for a 6th Framework Programme (BioCop) and to undertake a part-time PhD entitled Development of rapid analytical techniques for detection of agri-food related toxins.