Mark Bale
Genomics England, DHSC
Senior Civil Servant
Mark Bale is a Senior Civil Servant with responsibilities for genomic science policy particularly genomic medicine and pathogen genomics.
He was the Programme Director for the 100,000 Genomes Project. Since 2015 he has been partly seconded to Genomics England Ltd as Head of Science Partnerships supporting strategy, collaborations and public engagement.
His responsibilities are for policy on emerging healthcare science areas and their ethical, legal and policy implications. This includes regenerative medicine, gene therapy, genome editing, rare diseases and bioethics. He also had professional and management responsibility for scientists in the wider Department.
He represents the UK on bioethics, genomics, and biotechnology at international committees, including work on the EU 1+M Genomes Initiative. He was Chair of the Committee on Bioethics at the Council of Europe from 2014-2016.
Mark has a research background in microbial genetics and joined the Department of Health in 1999 after post-doctoral research on the safety of GMOs and pathogens.