Meet the Diagnostics North East Steering Group
Dr Michael Wright
Joint Medical Director, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Chair of Diagnostics North East
Dr Michael Wright
Joint 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
- Joint 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
Mhairi Spurr
Senior Commercial Business Manager, Health and Life Sciences, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Mhairi Spurr
Mhairi has more than 20 years’ experience across industry, academia and the NHS. Beginning her career as a laboratory scientist and Study Director in global pharmaceuticals, she later moved into joint NHS and university leadership roles in audit, operations and commercial management.
In 2026, Mhairi joined the Newcastle Hospitals commercial enterprise team, where she supports commercial growth and financial sustainability.
As Senior Commercial Business Manager for Health and Life Sciences, she leads commercial strategy development, manages strategic partnerships and opportunities, and oversees projects that accelerate innovation in patient care while maximising income and inward investment.
Mhairi is also a Non-Executive Director at the Human Tissue Authority and previously served as Operations Manager for Diagnostics North East. She has a strong interest in translational research, collaboration and cross-organisational innovation.
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 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.
Dr Victoria McFarlane Reid
Executive Director for Business, Development and Enterprise
Dr Victoria McFarlane Reid
Executive Director for Business, Development and Enterprise
Vicky started her role as Executive Director for Business, Development and Enterprise for the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals Foundation Trust in September 2019.
Contained within her portfolio are 4 main areas: Strategy and Business Planning, Performance and Contracting, Commercial Enterprise and Service Development. She also has responsibility as Director of Innovation for the North East Innovation Lab which was developed as part of the Integrated Covid Hub North East.
The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is a hugely successful acute trust, with over 18,000 highly skilled staff, dedicated to providing the best possible care for the people of the North East and beyond.
Prior to this, Vicky spent 17 years working for Leica Biosystems, a Danaher company, in the field of Cancer Diagnostics where she was the Director for Research and Development. Vicky has a PhD in Molecular Ecology and a BSc in Biology. She was born in the North East and lives with her wife and 3 dogs in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Wayne Elliott
Associate Director for Commercial Enterprise, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Wayne Elliott
Associate Director for Commercial Enterprise, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
Wayne has over 20 years’ experience in industry, working in roles including retail operations, product development and commercial planning.
In 2020 he joined the Newcastle Hospitals commercial enterprise team, driving commercial growth and leading on financial sustainability.
As the Associate Director of commercial enterprise, Wayne has led on the development and delivery of the Trust’s commercial strategy, focusing on growth across a broad portfolio covering specialist research and diagnostics, education and training, pharmaceutical production, international and private healthcare, innovation and data insights.
He is a member of the Shelford commercial directors’ group, and has a passion for driving high performance, guiding strategic decisions with well-founded information and insight.
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 also chairs the Research and Innovation Strategy Group for Newcastle Health Innovation Partners (Newcastle’s Academic Health Science Centre), where his focus is to encourage and facilitate cross-partner research with a short-to-medium-term benefit on the health and wealth of the regional population and beyond.
Professor John Simpson
Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Newcastle University, an honorary consultant in Respiratory Medicine at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
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.
Katharine Rogers
Acting Chief Operating Officer for Newcastle Health Research Partnership
Katharine Rogers
Acting Chief Operating Officer for Newcastle Health Research Partnership
Katharine is the acting Chief Operating Officer for Newcastle Health Research Partnership, one of eight Academic Health Science Centres in England to have been jointly designated by NIHR and NHS England.
Katharine Rogers is acting Chief Operating Officer on an interim basis to July 2025. She is responsible for increasing the reach, impact and visibility of Newcastle Health Research Partnership. Katharine is also Director of Faculty Operations in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at Newcastle University, responsible for circ. 750 strong professional and technical team providing services to support education and research and works as part of the Faculty’s senior leadership team to support strategy development and operational delivery. She has a track record in leading in large and complex multi stakeholder environments and in leading transformational change.
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.
Dr John Tyson
Head of the North East Innovation Lab, Part of Newcastle Hospitals
Dr John Tyson
Head of the North East Innovation Lab, Part of Newcastle Hospitals
John is head of the Innovation Lab at Newcastle Hospitals where he leads a team dedicated to working with industry to support the development of new diagnostic tests, and runs the Hospital's Biobank. He previously spent 8 years developing rapid molecular diagnostic tests at QuantuMDx and was also Senior Scientific Officer at Northgene. Prior to that John was a post doctoral researcher at Newcastle University. He has a PhD and BSc in Genetics.
Dr Chris Kettle
Operational Manager (Integrated and Precision Medicine) for NovoPath
Dr Chris Kettle
Operational Manager (Integrated and Precision Medicine) for NovoPath
Dr Chris Kettle is an NHS Operational Manager with oversight of NovoPath, Newcastle Biobank and the Northern England Haemato-Oncology Diagnostic Service (NEHODS), providing managerial and strategical support to these areas.
He was an UKAS Assessment Manager with experience of a broad range of quality management systems for all medical laboratory disciplines, with experience of ISO15189, ISO17025, ISO22870 and all relevant UKAS requirements. He has a BSc (Hons) in Genetics and PhD in the Genetics of Evolutionary Development, and is an HCPC-registered Clinical Scientist with over 20 years’ experience in NHS laboratories.
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.