Grace Kocks, Principal Application Scientist

Name: Grace Kocks

Job Title: Principal Application Scientist

I joined Lhasa Limited in 2013 as a Database Scientist after graduating, with a BSc (Hons) degree in Human Physiology, from the University of Leeds.

Initially I worked within Lhasa’s Science Team delivering high quality data in our Vitic software, which is used by Lhasa members around the world for regulatory purposes. As the data expert and lead for genotoxicity, my primary focus was gathering data, data curation, manipulation, and analysis. The mutagenicity data hosted in Vitic is invaluable to ICH M7 assessment and I was responsible for the Ames training set of over 12,000 compounds used in Lhasa’s statistical QSAR software (Sarah Nexus).

I am passionate about increasing our understanding of genotoxicity/mutagenicity data and so, in 2020, I became an ordinary committee member of the Industrial Genotoxicology Group (IGG).

Since then, my role has changed slightly and I am now part of the Applied Sciences Team. As a Principal Application Scientist, I am able to utilise my existing science knowledge and combine it with my desire to engage and collaborate more closely with our members. 

Lhasa has been an honest broker for many years and built a strong reputation for data sharing. I co-chair two industry consortium’s which represent the Elemental impurities and Nitrites in excipient initiatives. The Elemental impurities initiative collaboration with Lhasa members and regulators has delivered an effective solution to support risk assessment for ICH Q3D, through sharing proprietary data. The Nitrites in excipients initiative is one of Lhasa's most recent data sharing groups. Established in 2020, to aid Lhasa’s members with Nitrosamine risk assessments, the Nitrites in excipients initiative database was established to share data on the levels of Nitrite and Nitrate in common excipients.

Outside of work I enjoy spending time walking my dog Ellie.