Chris Toumazou

In 2013 he became London's first Regius Professor of Engineering conferred to Imperial College London during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Toumazou is also Chief Scientist of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Professor of Circuit Design at Imperial; Founder of Toumaz Holdings Ltd, Executive chairman and Founder of DNA Electronics Ltd., Chief Scientific Advisor to GENEU and a Co-Founder of DNAnudge

For his inventions on semiconductor based genetic testing he won the Gabor Medal of the Royal Society (2013) and European Inventor Award (2014). He is the first British winner of the prize in this contest since 2008.

Toumazou was awarded a prestigious Regius professorship, recognising the highest standard of research and teaching in the Faculty of Engineering. Announced on 29 January 2013, the honour was granted by the Queen as part of her 60th anniversary celebrations. David Willetts, Minister for Universities and Science, said: "I was incredibly impressed by the quality and range of the applications received and am delighted that twelve new Regius Professorships are to be created. Together, the successful applications demonstrated an exceptionally high level of achievement in both teaching and research [1]

He has given numerous public lectures and keynote addresses at a national and international level. In 2011 he was invited to speak at the TEDMED conference in San Diego. Other notable lectures include the G8 Summit (2013) and Royal Society public talk (2011).

He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (2008), Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (2008) and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2013), making him one of a handful in the UK who are fellows of all three premier societies.

In 2003 he raised a total of £22m to create the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial College London, a multidisciplinary research institute focusing on personalised medicine and bionanotechnology. He became its first Director and Chief Scientist. His own specialism is in the field of personalised healthcare, providing worn or implantable devices for early diagnosis and detection of disease.

Toumazou founded DNA Electronics in 2001 recognising that by merging microchip technology with genetic chemistry and DNA sequencing he was able to invent, develop and commercialise a new revolution in genetic point-of-care diagnostics and DNA sequencing. The technology launched in 2010 as "ion semiconductor sequencing" and has been licensed to Thermo Fisher Scientific. DNA Electronics Ltd, is developing rapid near-patient live diagnostics providing actionable information to clinicians. DNAe's priority focus is a test for blood stream infections for use in the management and prevention of sepsis.

Toumazou began undergraduate studies in 1980. He obtained both his undergraduate degree and doctorate at the then Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University). He moved to Imperial College London in 1986 as a Research Fellow in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering becoming the youngest professor at Imperial in 1994 at the age of 33. He was appointed Head of the Circuits and Systems Group in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and then Head of the Department of Bioengineering in 2001.

Christofer "Chris" Toumazou, FRS, FREng, FMedSci, FIET, FIEEE, FCGI, FRSM, CEng (Greek: Χριστόφορος Τουμάζου , born 5 July 1961) is a British Cypriot electronic engineer.