Prof. Andrew Richard Collins is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Oslo and the research director of NorGenoTech. He has spent his long scientific career in different places such as the University of Cambridge (1974-1979, 1980-1986, where he obtained his PhD in 1972 and the ScD in 2006), the Cambridge Coral Starfish Research Group (Port Sudan, 1973), the Eleanor Roosevelt Institute for Cancer Research (Denver, 1979-1980); the University of Aberdeen (1986-1991), the Rowett Research Institute (Aberdeen, 1992-2002) and the University of Oslo (2002-present). In 2009 he co-founded the spin off of the University of Oslo, ‘Comet Biotech’ (currently active by the name of NorGenoTech).
Andrew has been active in the field of environmental mutagenesis for all his scientific career, with special interest in human biomonitoring and nutrition. He is a very well known scientist for his contributions regarding all the modifications performed to the standard comet assay in order to measure different DNA lesions and even DNA repair. During his career, Andrew has published more than 280 scientific papers and books chapters, and received more than 15 400 citations since 1996. He has been Editor of the European Journal of Nutrition and ‘First Editor’ of the British Journal of Nutrition; and member of the editorial board of the following scientific journals: Free Radical Research, Mutagenesis, Mutation Research Reviews, Biomarkers, DNA Repair, Cell Biochemistry and Function. He has been involved in several national and international projects being the coordinator of the COMICS project (EC-STREP, FP6, 2007-2009). He founded the DNA Repair Network and the ComNet project.
His scientific achievements have been recognised at international level by different awards: Honorary Professor at The Robert Gordon University (2000-2010), Jan Jessenius Gold Medal of the Slovak National Academy of Science (2000), 1st James Parry Award of the UKEMS (2011), Honorary Professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (2012-2014) and Elected Life Fellow of the UKEMS (2013). Moreover, he has been involved in the organization of several conferences and workshops.
Andrew was Chairman of the European Standards Committee on Oxidative DNA Damage (1998-2003), member of Scientific Council (Scottish Cancer Foundation, resigned 2003), president of the UKEMS (2002-2004) and UK counsellor of the EEMS (2002-2004). Moreover, he was member of the EC Expert Group Women in Research Decision Making (2006-2007). Though partially retired, he is still very active in several research projects and the Chair of the Management Committee of the COST Action hCOMET.
