The GABA Labs Science and Innovation Team

GABA Labs is a pioneering, science-driven, R&D innovator applying science in three key areas:

neuropsychopharmacology and synthetic chemistry
bioprospecting and the use of AI
GABAergic botanicals

Here’s the team doing this work.

GABA Labs – Leadership team

David Orren is an experienced leader of businesses that bring innovation, change and opportunity for wider societal transformation. He shapes business strategy and is responsible for the commercialisation of GABA Labs’ technology.

David brings 20 years international experience enabling disruptive technologies to secure market engagement. With a degree in Engineering and an MBA (US), he began his career as a Chartered Engineer driving process automation and innovation with industry leaders such as Ford Motor Company and Thorn EMI. David has led international organisations through strategic change and into new markets in the UK, Europe, Asia and the Americas. David founded a technology company in Silicon Valley achieving market leadership within four years. More recently, David has worked with founders of high-potential innovation companies to assist with route to market and organisation building.

David co-founded GABA Labs with Professor David Nutt to realise their vision of bringing greater choices to adult social drinkers.

Psychiatrist and neuropsychopharmacologist Professor David Nutt is a leader in the study of the brain, drugs, and conditions such as addiction, anxiety and sleep.

David spent two years as Chief of Section of Clinical Science in the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in America before setting up the psychopharmacology unit at Bristol University. In 2008 he moved to Imperial College London as the Edmond J Safra chair in Neuropsychopharmacology.

David is a prolific speaker and successful author on scientific matters. He won the Transmission Prize for Communicating Science in 2014. David has published over 500 scientific papers, over 30 books, contributed to 8 government reports, and has edited the Journal of Psychopharmacology for 20 years. David earned the distinction of being included by Times Eureka magazine in 2010 as one of the 100 most important figures in British science, and he received the prestigious John Maddox Prize in 2013 (a joint initiative between Sense About Science and the scientific journal Nature).

David co-founded GABA Labs with David Orren in order to achieve their vision of bringing greater choices to adult social drinkers.

GABA Labs – Scientific Advisory Board

Professor John Atack is a molecular pharmacologist with over 25 years of experience in drug discovery, specializing in neuroscience. He is currently the Director of the Medicines Discovery Institute at Cardiff University.

His career spans both academia and the pharmaceutical industry, with a focus on drug discovery. Atack also serves as Co-Director of the Medicines Discovery Institute, leading research in new drug identification and scientific translation for patient benefit.

Additionally, he played a key role in the establishment of the Cardiff University Translational Drug Discovery Centre, launched in March 2019.

Professor James Cook has worked in the fields of drug development, drug discovery and medicinal chemistry for over 40 years, currently positioned as the Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.

James has lead research groups over 40 years focusing on a number of applications in medicinal chemistry, notably the development of new anti-anxiety drugs that lack muscle-relaxant, ataxic and sedative-hypnotic side effects. These would improve the treatment of conditions such as anxiety disorders, panic attacks, PTSD, and agoraphobia, and would have less potential for abuse.

He has published nearly 500 scientific papers and has sat on the editorial board for nine different journals including Clinical Pharmacology: Advances and Applications.

Dr Coulshed is an award-winning senior lecturer in chemistry education at Kings College in London. She is Associate Vice Dean (Assessment and Quality Assurance) in Faculty of Natural Mathematical and Engineering Sciences.

Helen leads funded cross-institutional projects on neurodiversity, assessment, and student transition into STEM. She was the Faculty EDI lead for physical sciences between 2020-2024 and is a member of the physical science program and module scrutiny panel ensuring accessibility and inclusion is embedded in King’s programmes. Helen has a strong track record of co-creating research-led teaching and fostering sector-wide impact through workshops, outreach, and collaborative networks.

Dr Joubert Gama is a senior pharmaceutical physician and final signatory with extensive experience as senior medical officer in major pharmaceutical drug development programs.

Joubert is experienced in diverse therapeutic areas: anaesthesia, bio-surgery, cardiovascular (hypertension and CHD), CNS (Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, restless legs syndrome, migraine, peripheral neuropathic pain), dermatology, gastroenterology, haemato-oncology, haemophilia, infant and adult nutrition, psychiatry (major depressive disorders, anxiety and schizophrenia), renal, women’s health, and vaccines (adult and paediatric).

Joubert’s medical background is in general surgery/trauma/General Practice and Drug Dependancy.

Professor Stephen Husbands aims to improve our understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underpin neuropsychological diseases such as depression and anxiety, with a focus on substance abuse.

He has been a Professor in the Department of Pharmacy & Pharmacology at the Centre for Therapeutic Innovation at the University of Bath since 2012. In recent years he has focused on how drugs that bind to opioid receptors in the brains, such as buprenorphine and naloxone, can be used to combat addiction to cocaine, opioids and other drugs. His work on the molecular characteristics of these drugs also contributes to improving our understanding of how changes in brain chemistry can influence neurological conditions such as insomnia, depression and anxiety.

Stephen has published over 150 scientific papers.

Dr Paul Jenner qualified in medicine from St Mary’s Hospital, University of London. After eight years in clinical medicine, he spent thirty years in the pharmaceutical industry. He is a Member of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians and a Member of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Paul has held a variety of roles in clinical development, medical affairs and marketing in the neuroscience area. He was formerly Vice President, Commercial Development, Psychiatry Clinical Development & Product Strategy, GlaxoSmithKline and, from 2002 to 2016, was Global Head, New Products, Neuroscience, Novartis AG based in Basel, Switzerland.

Paul has extensive worldwide strategic marketing experience in USA, Europe and Asia with responsibilities for products in depression/anxiety, psychosis, ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, stroke, neuropathic pain and migraine.

Professor Keshavan Niranjan studies how engineering principles can be harnessed to create safe and environmentally sustainable methods of creating processed food.

As Professor of Food Bioprocessing at the University of Reading, where he has been a faculty member since 1989, Keshavan research covers a range of applications. These include reducing the health impacts of deep fried products, devising compostable packaging, creating more efficient methods to extract nutrients from fruits and vegetables, and improving the stability of foams and bubbles in products such as frothed milk.

Keshavan has published over 125 research papers, is a Fellow of the Institute of Food Science and Technology, and is an Editor of the Journal of Food Engineering.

Professor Simon Ward is the Sêr Cymru Professor of Translational Drug Discovery and the Director of the Medicines Discovery Institute at Cardiff University.

He joined Cardiff University in 2017 to establish the Medicines Discovery Institute, building on his previous work at the University of Sussex. As a medicinal chemist and an international expert, Ward has extensive experience in the field, including a significant tenure at Glaxo SmithKline.

His work at the Medicines Discovery Institute centers on developing new drugs to address mental health and neurodegenerative disorders, focusing on translating advances in disease understanding into practical treatments.

GABA Labs – R&D team

Euan leads the integration of scientific and commercial strategy to deliver world-leading innovation in GABA technology.

He is a qualified litigation lawyer who practised in the City of London for seven years before undertaking a four-year degree in Herbal Medicine. Following graduation, he was appointed as a university lecturer in pathology, clinical medicine, and differential diagnosis, and joined the editorial board of Elsevier’s Journal of Herbal Medicine. He has also undertaken doctoral-level research in gastrointestinal medicine at the University of Bath. This combined legal, clinical, and academic foundation provides a robust framework for governance, critical evaluation of evidence, and responsible research leadership.

Between 2016 and 2024, Euan held the position of R&D Director at Pukka Herbs Ltd and also served as Senior Director at Unilever Plc. In these roles, he conceived, secured, and directed major research and innovation programmes in functional foods and supplements, while also overseeing regulatory strategy and compliance. Euan brings the multidisciplinary capability and strategic oversight required to lead a complex and commercially-focused research project to successful delivery.

Neuropsychopharmacologist Dr Tyacke is a clinical research scientist specialising in development of new tools, including new ligands, to image the brain.

Ligands are chemicals injected into human subjects during brain scans, binding to specific neuro-receptors in the brain, thus allowing neuroscientists to visualise the response across different target regions of the brain through PET scans. The author of more than 100 research papers, Dr Tyacke is currently Research Manager at the Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology and Molecular Imaging at Imperial College London. He is a member of the British Pharmacological Society and the British Association of Psychopharmacology.

Matt is Production Manager and NPD Lead at TSDC and works with the R&D team to advise on scale up and commercialisation.

Matt has a BSc in Chemistry from the University of Bristol and qualifications in Food Hygiene (HACCP lvl3) and process safety (IChemE). He has worked on scale up of chemical process from lab to plant in a range of fields including ink, polymers for 9 years and now a further 2 in food/food supplements at GABA Labs, from gram scale up to 20 ton reactors. This includes designing pilot plants, HAZOP/HACCP risk assessments, authoring basis of safety documentation for the handling of highly hazardous materials and formulating innovative products to fit a technical brief.

Dr Alan Borthwick is an experienced senior medicinal chemist, with a successful career providing expertise and support in drug design and medicinal chemistry to a wide range of sectors including academia, biotech and the pharmaceutical industry.

With a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of London, Alan has over 35 years experience in assisting with drug design for major pharmaceutical companies, including numerous positions as a senior project lead to drug discovery teams. Personal successes include producing the drug Fluparoxan and the once-a-day antihypertensive Lacidipine while Scientific Manager for GlaxoSmithKline.

Alan has published over 65 scientific papers and is a named inventor on 36 patent applications, and was an expert advisor and consultant to the Wellcome Trust’s Expert Review Group.

John King Underwood has a successful track record in leading computational chemistry teams in “big pharma”, latterly GSK. He has since set up his own consulting company providing this service independently.

Collaborative Partners

Dr. Alex Shaw specializes in neurobiology, computational, imaging, and theoretical neurosciences, psychiatry, and psychedelics in the Department of Psychology at the University of Exeter.

His research focuses on understanding the pathophysiology of psychiatric diseases using multimodal imaging techniques like M/EEG, MRI, and PET, along with pharmaco-imaging, psychedelic and anaesthetic drugs, machine learning, and computational modeling.

Shaw conducts pharmaco-M/EEG studies on drug effects on neuronal function in psychiatric diseases and develops neurophysiologically-inspired brain models. He also serves as co-director of Business Engagement and Innovation, MRI liaison at Exeter.

Dr. Jerome Swinny, Professor of Neuropharmacology at the University of Portsmouth, earned his PhD in Neurobiology from the University of Groningen, Netherlands. His postdoctoral work spanned the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Oxford.

Joining the University of Portsmouth in 2009, he was promoted to Professor in 2020. Dr. Swinny leads the Neurochemical Anatomy & Psychopharmacology research group and oversees neuroscience and neuropharmacology education in the School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Science.

Dr. Prieto Garcia provides consulting services to the herbal medicine, food supplement, and cosmetic industries in various areas, including THRM registration advice, expert reports, indications, formulation design and development, analytical method development, biostandardization, and the application of artificial intelligence to product design. For GABA Labs, his phytochemistry and botanical fractionation expertise and extraction methodology development is of particular benefit.