Dr Barry Hardy is leading Edelweiss Connect and its team supporting the development of new integrating solutions in industrial safety assessment. An example application is that for integrated testing for skin sensitization available at https://its.douglasconnect.com/

He has coordinated the OpenTox project in predictive toxicology and the ToxBank infrastructure development project. He is currently President of the OpenTox Association, founded in 2015 as an international non-profit organisation promoting an open knowledge community approach to new methods in predictive toxicology.

He recently led the infrastructure development for the IMI EBiSC stem cell banking project and the eNanoMapper project developing OpenTox solutions supporting nanotechnology safety assessment. New projects include leading OpenRiskNet, knowledge infrastructure development for ACEnano and Eu-ToxRisk and translation of research methods to industrial practice within ToxHQ.

He has led the development of research and best practice activities in drug design and toxicology through founding the eCheminfo Community of Practice, InnovationWell and leading the Scientists Against Malaria project.

Dr. Hardy obtained his Ph.D. in 1990 from Syracuse University working in computational science. He was a National Research Fellow at the FDA Center for Biologics and Evaluation, a Hitchings-Elion Fellow at Oxford University and CEO of Virtual Environments International. 

He was a pioneer in the 1990s in the development of Web technology applied to virtual scientific communities and conferences. He has developed technology solutions for internet-based communications, tutor-supported e-learning, laboratory automation systems, and computational science and informatics.

In recent years he has also been active in the field of knowledge management as applied to supporting innovation, communities of practice, and collaboration.