Neil Naish joined Oxitec in 2007 to develop scale rearing methods for Oxitec’s moth portfolio, a position that leveraged his deep knowledge of moth rearing, engineering background and creative instincts.  He quickly established himself as Oxitec’s senior insect rearing expert and is a pivotal player in each of Oxitec’s programs.

Neil is the primary innovator in our team responsible for both insect-oriented innovation and scalability required for mass production of insects. The systems he has created at Oxitec include all generations of the mosquito aquaculture systems from the early iterations used in mass production in the UK and our Brazilian factory to novel setups being tested with Anopheles species as part of the Gates-funded strain development programs as well as the systems currently being developed for our agricultural target insects.

Neil is the chief scientist working on production scaling in our fall armyworm program. Using his own expertise to drive partners and contractors to design and create the factory-scale systems necessary for going to market, he has achieved unprecedented scale using single-cell rearing matrices.

Neil lives in the Oxford area with his family, and a variety of lepidopteran colonies.