Meet the Diagnostics North East Steering Group
Dr Michael Wright
Deputy Medical Director, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Chair of Diagnostics North East
Dr Michael Wright
Deputy Medical Director, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Chair of Diagnostics North East
Michael is a Consultant in Clinical Genetics and is Associate Clinical Lecturer at Newcastle University and is Chair of Diagnostics North East.
As Chair of Diagnostics North East Steering Group, Michael strengthens links with fellow partners within this collaboration. He has been involved in one of Diagnostics North East’s partners, the NIHR Diagnostic Evidence Co-operative Newcastle (Newcastle MIC) since it’s conception and throughout its development. It was from this that his role in Diagnostics North East developed.
Clinically, Michael works within The Northern Genetics Service as a paediatric geneticist and is the Co-Clinical Director of the North East and Yorkshire Genomics Medicine Service Alliance. He was one of the founding Directors and ultimately Chair of NewGene Ltd a joint venture between Newcastle Hospitals and Newcastle University providing next generation DNA diagnostic testing.
Research interests
Michael has extensive experience within the NHS as a clinician with expertise in paediatric genetics and molecular medicine and as a medical leader working both within and across local, regional and national NHS structures. He has research interests in the diagnosis and management of rare bone diseases. This includes disorders of connective tissue, tooth development and skeletal dysplasias, a group of disorders characterised by abnormalities of bone growth, all of which provide similar clinical and diagnostic challenges. He is a member of the Newcastle University Rare Disease NuCORE and the NHIP Research and Innovation Strategy Group.
Roles
- Consultant Clinical Geneticist
- Deputy Medical Director at Newcastle Hospitals
- Associate Clinical Lecturer at Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences
- Co-Clinical Director North East and Yorkshire Genomic Medicine Service Alliance
- Member Yorkshire Humber and North East Genomic Laboratory Hub Partnership Board
- Member UK Clinical Genomics Clinical Reference Group
- Member Newcastle University Rare Disease NUCORE
Michelle O’Rourke
Manager of Diagnostics North East and Industry Liaison for its partners, including the NIHR Newcastle In Vitro Diagnostic Co-operative
Michelle O’Rourke
Manager of Diagnostics North East and Industry Liaison for its partners, including the NIHR Newcastle In Vitro Diagnostic Co-operative
Michelle is the Manager of Diagnostics North East and is Industry Liaison for its partners. She is also responsible for the creation of the website and delivery of the annual conference and is based at the Newcastle Joint Research Office (NJRO).
As Commercial Manager for Medical Technologies, Michelle was previously the medtech lead for Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, where she was responsible for liaising with industrial partners and researchers regarding potential collaborations in relation to commercial, non-commercial and investigator led studies for devices, digital, AI and diagnostic research. In this role, Michelle was also the Industry Liaison for the Newcastle MIC and other DxNE partners, a role that she continues as manager.
With a thorough understanding of the research and innovation space, particularly within the health and life sciences sector, Michelle’s other roles have included tracking pharmaceutical development and writing briefings for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as part of the Health Technology Assessment programme, whilst working at the NIHR Innovation Observatory.
With a BSc in Psychology, Michelle’s career has predominantly been in the NHS in primary, secondary and emergency care with various roles in analysis, project and staff management as an information / research specialist. This includes working as a clinical audit manager, in performance management, informatics and outpatient management. Michelle has also undertaken project management and research roles for local government and worked in the private sector in global banking and in the voluntary sector.
Professor Nick Reynolds
Professor of Dermatology and Director of Diagnostics at Newcastle University and Honorary Consultant Dermatologist at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Professor Nick Reynolds
Professor of Dermatology and Director of Diagnostics at Newcastle University and Honorary Consultant Dermatologist at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Nick leads a multi-disciplinary service for patients with psoriasis and atopic eczema. He is also Diagnostic lead for the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University and is a founding member of Diagnostics North East.
He has a broad interest in precision medicine, systems biology and computational modelling approaches to understanding the mechanism of action of therapeutic agents and predicting individual patient outcomes.
He has been closely involved with BADBIR (British Association of Dermatologists Biologics and Immunomodulators Register) since its inception and has chaired the Research Committee since 2009. As work-strand lead in a multi-centre stratified medicine programme - PSORT (Psoriasis Stratification to Optimise Relevant Therapy), he has contributed particularly to transcriptomic and systems analyses as well as working closely with patient groups. Between 2016 and 2019, he was Director of Newcastle’s MRC/EPSRC Molecular Pathology Node, one of six units established in the UK to bring researchers, clinicians and industry together to develop molecular diagnostic tools for personalized medicine.
He was the inaugural Chair of UK TREND (Translational Research Network in Dermatology), is past president of the European Society for Dermatological Research (ESDR) and was selected as a NIHR Senior Investigator in 2019.
Roles
- NIHR Senior Investigator
- Chair of BADBIR Research Committee
- Diagnostics Lead for Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University
Professor Andrew Blamire
Dean of the Translational and Clinical Research Institute and Professor of Magnetic Resonance Physics in the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University
Professor Andrew Blamire
Dean of the Translational and Clinical Research Institute and Professor of Magnetic Resonance Physics in the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University
Andrew Blamire is Dean of the Translational and Clinical Research Institute and Professor of Magnetic Resonance Physics in the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University.
His research interests focus on the methodological development and clinical application of advanced in vivo imaging technology (Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Positron Emission Tomography). His current and recent research includes studies of muscle structure and function in neuromuscular diseases where he co-leads imaging for large international studies in dysferlinopathy (the JAIN COS study) and coordinated the European BIOIMAGE-NMD consortium, both seeking to establish imaging endpoints as outcome measure for clinical trials in rare diseases.
In neuroimaging he was imaging lead for the international TIRCON study, using quantitative MRI monitoring of therapeutic effect in brain iron storage diseases. He was Director of the Centre for In Vivo Imaging at Newcastle until 2019 when he was appointed Dean of Institute.
Andrea Burroughs
Associate Director for Commercial Enterprise
Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Andrea Burroughs
Andrea has over 30 years of experience working in the private and public sector, including 10 years as a Board Director.
In the first half of her career, Andrea had a variety of commercial roles in the technology sector including 10 years at Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa prior to starting her own consultancy business which included working as a Non-Executive Director for an Acute Trust.
Prior to the formation of the Commercial Enterprise Team at Newcastle, she has worked as Director of Business Development for an Acute Trust, Commercial Director for the Wessex Academic Health Science Network and most recently working as Health Sector Lead driving collaborative R&D opportunities between industry and academia. The role of the Commercial Enterprise team is to bring additional income into the Trust to be reinvested in the provision of healthcare as well as build strong relationships with key external and internal stakeholders.
Professor Alastair David Burt
Director of NovoPath, Theme Lead for Precision Medicine, Genomics and Informatics at Newcastle University and Vice Chair, Integrated Covid Hub NE Innovation Board
Professor Alastair David Burt
Director of NovoPath, Theme Lead for Precision Medicine, Genomics and Informatics at Newcastle University and Vice Chair, Integrated Covid Hub NE Innovation Board
Alastair Burt was born in Dunfermline, Scotland and is a graduate of the University of Glasgow where he obtained a BSc in Pathology with First Class Honours in 1979, MBChB with Commendation in 1981 and MD with Honours and the Bellahouston Medal in 1991.
Upon graduation, he became Junior House Officer in General Medicine with Professor Sir Abraham Goldberg and Junior House Officer in Surgery with Professor Sir David Carter. He subsequently took up training in surgical pathology under the tutelage of Professor Sir Roddy MacSween. During this time, he developed expertise in diagnostic pathology of the liver and a keen interest in the pathogenesis of liver disease and in particular mechanisms of liver fibrosis. In 1985-86 he was a Peel Trust Fellow in the Lab for Cell Biology and Histology at Free University of Brussels under the direction of Professor Eddie Wisse. On return to the UK and completion of his postgraduate training in surgical pathology he moved to the University of Newcastle upon Tyne to become Senior Lecturer in Pathology and Honorary Consultant Histopathologist. He was promoted to a personal Chair in Hepatopathology in 1995 and then the established Chair of Pathology in 1998. He became Dean of Clinical Medicine at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 2005.
He moved to South Australia in January 2013 to take up the post of Dean of Medicine and Head of the School of Medicine. In August 2014, he became acting Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and was appointed to the substantive role in December 2014. He continued to maintain an active research interest in liver disease and has published extensively in high quality peer-reviewed journals including Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Lancet, N Engl J Med, Gastroenterology, Hepatology. He has an H index of 72 and over 23000 citations.
He has secured over $8m in external grants and has supervised 16 HDR students to completion. He is Editor in Chief of the principal international text book in his field, MacSween’s Pathology of the Liver, now into its 8th edition. In addition, he completed seven years as Editor in Chief of the peer reviewed journal, Histopathology. He was elected as a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2015.
As Executive Dean, he successfully led a number of major changes which include restructure of the Faculty, implementation of the most comprehensive Faculty-level professional services reform program in the institution, ‘reimagining’ of the Bachelor of Health Sciences and Psychological Sciences programs and the development of a new Bachelor/MD program in Medicine to achieve AQF level 9 status. He chaired the key governance groups for the development of the $240m Adelaide Health and Medical Sciences building which was officially opened in February 2017 and the governance committees for the redevelopment of the Helen Mayo Buildings. He was a member of the Board of SAHMRI, the Executive of the SA Health Research and Translation Centre and Adelaide BioMed City Partners.
He developed strong partnerships with key stakeholders in the health sector in particular SA Health and its networks and chaired the SA Clinical Training Council. He was awarded Emeritus status by the university in March 2019. He returned to the UK and was appointed Professor of Precision and Molecular Pathology at Newcastle University and Honorary Consultant Histopathologist in November 2019. He is currently Director of NovoPath, Theme Lead for Precision Medicine, Genomics and Informatics at Newcastle University and Vice Chair, Integrated Covid Hub NE Innovation Board.
Professor John Isaacs
Associate Medical Director for Research and Consultant Rheumatologist at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Professor John Isaacs
Associate Medical Director for Research and Consultant Rheumatologist, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
John Isaacs is Professor of Clinical Rheumatology and Director of Therapeutics North East at Newcastle University and Associate Medical Director for Research and Consultant Rheumatologist at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
Over the past 25 years, his work has focused on the potential of novel immunotherapies to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ranging from target identification to early- and late-stage clinical trials.
Professor Isaacs runs a research group focussed on therapeutic tolerance induction, including the development of robust tools for monitoring of immune status. His team has pioneered tolerogenic dendritic cell therapy for inflammatory arthritis patients. He also has a longstanding interest in precision therapeutics for rheumatic disease, and led the Medical Research Council/Association of British Pharmaceutical Industries (MRC/ABPI) RA-MAP consortium, seeking prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers for RA.
In 2019 Prof Isaacs became a National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator, and is past Chair of the Scientific Committee of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (2019-20). From 2007 to 2017 Professor Isaacs chaired Arthritis Research UK’s Clinical Study Group for Adult Inflammatory Arthritis, developing a competitive research agenda for the UK.
As Associate Medical Director for Research at Newcastle Hospitals he has developed a research strategy focussed on embedding research into every day patient care. He is also Research Director of Newcastle Health Innovation Partners (Newcastle’s Academic Health Science Centre), where his focus is ensuring research discoveries are appropriately evaluated and adopted, ultimately improving the health and wealth of the regional population and beyond.
Stephen Lynn
Associate Director at the Academic Health Science Network for the North East and North Cumbria
Stephen Lynn
Associate Director at the Academic Health Science Network for the North East and North Cumbria
In his current role, Stephen is responsible for supporting companies wanting to access the NHS.
Stephen has a PhD in molecular biology and physiology from Newcastle University and went on to be a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Stanford University where he studied the link between oxidative stress and neurodegeneration.
Stephen then moved to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office at the British Consulate in San Francisco as the Vice-Consul for Science and Innovation where he was involved in policy development as well as trade and investment between the UK and the USA, and was the North America lead for the stem cells and regenerative medicine agenda.
After returning to the UK in 2007, Stephen was the project manager of a €10 million network of excellence, funded through FP6, to address the fragmentation in translational research for the assessment and treatment of rare neuromuscular diseases coordinated by Newcastle University. This network also allowed Newcastle University to lead on other major awards to develop new tools, resources and take a leading role on the issues affecting patients with rare diseases across Europe, in partnership with clinicians, academics, patients, industry and policy makers.
Before joining the AHSN, Stephen worked in the NHS as a Commercial Manager for Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust with responsibility for business development activities involving medical technologies and diagnostics where he helped to establish and launch Diagnostics North East.
Peter Noble
Peter Noble
Peter qualified as a radiographer and received the IHSM national award from his work on workforce planning.
In the NHS he was Director of Health Strategy for Yorkshire & Humber, led the integration of acute services across NE London and established the UK’s first social enterprise in Mental Health in NE Lincolnshire as Managing Director. He was General Manager at the University of Leeds, establishing the Leeds and Bradford Medical School and has held Non-Executive roles in industry and in the NHS in both Bradford and Manchester.
The has driven major transformational programmes in executive roles which include, Operations Director at MRC Gambia, Vice-President at UNSW Sydney and Chief Operating Officer for the Science Technology Facilities Council at UKRI. He was previous holder of the UK Business Continuity Award. His experience in Academic Health Science Centres includes; Director of an international review of 27 Centres for UK Government across four continents; re-accreditation of Manchester Academic Health Centre and establishing SPHERE as a new accredited Academic Health Science Centre in Sydney. He joined Newcastle Health Innovation Partners in October 2020 as Chief Operating Officer.
Professor John Simpson
Professor John Simpson
John is a founding member of Diagnostics North East and has been Director of the NIHR Newcastle In Vitro Diagnostic Co-operative (Newcastle MIC) since its origins in 2012 as the previously named NIHR Newcastle Diagnostics Evidence Co-operative (DEC) Newcastle. He led the DEC’s successful bid to become an NIHR MIC in 2017.
His research interests largely focus on infection in critically ill patients. He has been chief investigator for four successfully completed randomised controlled trials, one of which studied a novel diagnostic strategy for ventilator-associated pneumonia in 22 UK intensive care units. His main clinical interests are in pneumonia, pulmonary embolism, and interstitial lung disease.
Roles
- Professor of Respiratory Medicine, Newcastle University
- Honorary consultant in Respiratory Medicine at Newcastle Hospitals
- NIHR Senior Investigator
- Deputy Chair, MRC Clinical Training and Career Development Panel
- Panel member, NIHR Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation (EME) panel
Dr Andrew Sims
Head of Northern Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering Department, Director of the Newcastle External Assessment Centre for the NICE Medical Technology Evaluation Programme, Deputy Director of the NIHR Newcastle In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative
Dr Andrew Sims
Head of Northern Medical Physics and Clinical Engineering Department, Director of the Newcastle External Assessment Centre for the NICE Medical Technology Evaluation Programme, Deputy Director of the NIHR Newcastle In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative
Andrew is Head of NMPCE, a Clinical Directorate of Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. The Department has 120 NHS staff, and provides services in clinical measurement, clinical engineering, imaging physics and radiation safety, rehabilitation engineering, medical device QA and health technology assessment. It has strong academic links with Newcastle University.
He is Director of the EAC for the NICE Medical Technology Evaluation Programme. One of five such centres nationally, the EAC supports the preparation of national guidance for novel health technologies (devices, diagnostics, procedures) through critical appraisal, systematic review, research facilitation, establishment of clinical registries and technical testing. Andrew is Deputy Director of the NIHR Newcastle In-vitro diagnostics Cooperative which supports evidence generation for novel diagnostics.
He has a BSc and PhD in Physics, an MSc in Statistics and is an HCPC-registered Clinical Scientist. He holds grants as PI or CoI with the NIHR and the Wellcome Trust. He is a member of the NIHR Invention for Innovation Product Development Award funding panel. Current research interests are in health technology assessment and use of real-world data in outcomes research.
Russell Watkins
Commercial Director at the Academic Health Science Network for the North East and North Cumbria
Russell Watkins
Commercial Director at the Academic Health Science Network for the North East and North Cumbria
Russ is the Commercial Director at the AHSN NENC and oversees the Economic Growth team.
He is passionate about supporting innovators looking to develop products for the NHS. Russ has held a variety of roles in the NHS throughout the North East and uses his experiences of over 20 years to ensure that innovators understand the complexity of the NHS and how best to navigate it.