UCLH research leads appointed

Research growth at UCLH received a boost last month with the formal appointment of nine research leads to promote research within their clinical area.

UCLH introduced the concept of research ‘hubs’ to provide infrastructure support to researchers, and as part of a new system for allocating NHS support funding.

The appointed hub leads and their areas are:

  • Professor Jeremy Whelan – cancer
  • Dr Richard Perry – cardiovascular disease, stroke, renal and metabolic medicine
  • Dr Patrick O'Brien – women's health, neonates and haematology
  • Dr Jeremy Chataway – dementia and neurological disorders
  • Professor Nikos Donos – oral health
  • Dr David Brealey – anaesthesia, critical care, emergency medicine and respiratory
  • Professor Anne Schilder – ENT
  • Professor Mike Ehrenstein – rheumatology
  • Dr Maddy Noursadeghi – infection
  • Dr Stuart Bloom – gastroenterology

A new National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Network Board for UCLH will be chaired by Dr Patrick O’Brien.

The hub leads will work to support strategic coordination of clinical research and feasibility processes for research projects. The hub leads will help the trust embed performance management for research through the identification of staff requirements and promoting the delivery of studies included in the NIHR portfolio of high-quality studies eligible for NIHR support at UCLH to time and target.

More information about the new hub leads –  

Dr Richard Perry is a consultant neurologist with a special interest in stroke, particularly ‘hyperacute’ stroke care.  He was the Clinical Lead for the new Hyperacute Stroke Unit (HASU) at UCLH while it was being set up in 2009-2010.  Once the unit was setup, research recruitment became a high priority.  He led the successful bid to develop one of eight national Hyperacute Stroke Research Centres within our UCLH.

Dr Patrick O’Brien is a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at UCLH. Dr O’Brien specialises in maternal medicine and at UCLH jointly runs the multi-disciplinary ‘high-risk’ antenatal team involving consultants in fetal medicine, cardiology, haematology and diabetes. Dr O’Brien chaired the international section of the Institute for Women’s Health at UCLH and is a member of the medical advisory and clinical governance committees at the Portland Hospital.

Professor Anne Schilder leads the evidENT team at UCL dedicated to developing the evidence base for ENT, hearing and balance.  She is a Paediatric ENT surgeon at the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and holds a chair at the UCL Ear Institute and at the University Medical Center Utrecht (in the Netherlands). Professor Schilder’s trials in the field of ENT infections in children have been influential in the way global health-care systems think about the management of these conditions and have been translated into evidence-based guidelines and health policies.

Dr Jeremy Chataway is a consultant neurologist and clinical lead of the multiple sclerosis group (over 3,000 patients) at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. Dr Chataway has a particular interest in clinical trial design and was the Chief Investigator of a recently reported MS-STAT trial in secondary progressive MS, using high dose simvastatin. Dr Chataway sits on the UK MS Society grant review panel for care and services research and the UK MS Society clinical trials network steering group.

Dr David Brealey is a consultant in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine at UCLH. Dr Brealey and his team run trials on behalf of the surgery, gastroenterology and emergency medicine departments at University College Hospitals, and the Eastman Dental Hospital. They work closely with the anaesthetic research team and aim to be a core resource within the broader emergency care pathway.

Dr Maddy Noursadeghi is a senior lecturer in the Division of Infection & Immunity at UCL and an Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases at UCLH. Dr Noursadeghi’s research focuses on how  human cells interact with microbes and the application of new technologies to simultaneously measure immune responses across the whole genome in order to understand how infections cause disease. Dr Noursadeghi leads the UCL/UCLH Clinical Infectious Diseases research team aligning clinical and research expertise and is responsible for supporting clinical research studies in infectious diseases.

Professor Michael Ehrenstein is an Honorary Consultant Rheumatologist at UCLH.  Professor Ehrenstein’s research is into the use of biologic therapy as a molecular scalpel to understand pathogenesis of autoimmune rheumatic disease (including rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus) both in terms of loss of immune tolerance and ongoing inflammation. Professor Ehrenstein and his team seek to develop novel and safer therapies and to improve existing therapies for autoimmune rheumatic disease.

Professor Nikos Donos is the Chair of Periodontology and the Director of Research at the Eastman Dental Institute.  Professor Donos has been the Chief Investigator for an NIHR portfolio study in diabetes and periodontal disease and is the Principal Investigator of a number of industry supported research grants. Professor Donos has helped to establish and further develop clinical research at the Eastman and facilitated through his roles research activity/outputs in relation to portfolio studies. The research expertise of the team lead by Professor Donos is in the field of interactions of periodontal disease and other diseases, regenerative medicine and novel diagnostics techniques.  

Professor Jeremy Whelan is a consultant oncologist at UCLH and leads a programme of clinical research in sarcomas and in cancer affecting young people. He is a chief investigator of the international study for osteosarcoma, EURAMOS 1, which has recruited over 2,000 patients in Europe and the USA and of BRIGHTLIGHT, a study addressing the value of specialist services for young people with cancer. 

Dr Stuart Bloom is a consultant gastroenterologist at UCLH with special interests in the care of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and maximising participation in clinical trials. Dr Bloom was chair of the NIHR Clinical Research Network gastroenterology specialty group from 2008-2013 and is currently gastroenterology specialty lead for North Thames Clinical Research Network. Dr Bloom also chairs the national IBD registry which uses technology to record outcomes from clinical consultations to define populations of patients with IBD.