IBMS Congress 2022

Sarah Albon

Cellular Therapy Centre Director, Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Sarah graduated from the University of Nottingham with a First Class Honours Degree in Biology with specialisation in Immunology and Parasite Immunology. She began her career training as a Clinical Scientist in Immunology at the London Royal Free Hospital, and during the 3 year period gained a Masters Degree in Medical Immunology from the University of London. After a further year of experience in Immunology and Cell Therapy at Great Ormond Street and The Royal London, Sarah was awarded her HCPC Registration and moved into a Cell Therapy Research position at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. Sarah spent 10 years at ICH, and during this time built a team of scientists manufacturing novel cell therapy products to GMP and facilitating the delivery of clinical trials for a range of conditions including ALL, PTLD and post-transplant immunodeficiency.

In November 2019, Sarah was appointed Director of the Cambridge Cellular Therapy Laboratory at Addenbrooke's Hospital, and despite the pandemic, over the past 2 years Sarah has made it her goal to rebuild the department and accelerate it towards the very cutting edge of Cell Therapy in the UK.

Sue Alexander MSc MSc MBA CSci FIBMS CBiol FRSB MIHM MCQI CQP

Principal Biomedical Scientist and Pathology Services Manager, Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust

Sue is the Principal Biomedical Scientist and Pathology Services Manager at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. As a microbiologist by training her first management post was in microbiology at Great Ormond Children’s Hospital. She has a long interest in continuing personal and professional development and in encouraging others to study.

Sue has become involved in educational and teaching activities over time working with different universities and also developing MSc courses. She took a lead in developing leadership and management qualifications for the IBMS  as these are skills that are essential for ensuring the smooth running of services and for working in the increasingly commercialised and pressurised Pathology world.

Sue launched the Higher Specialist Diploma in Management and Leadership at Congress in 2009 and the CEP for Leadership and management in 2013. She completed her MBA in 2014 and applies her learning from this and the Certificate of Management to her day-to-day role and broader roles. She is a technical assessor in Microbiology for ISO 15189:2012 and a member of the UKAS PAC and was on the small team working with the Department for Education on the national programme to develop T level qualifications which are technical equivalents of A levels, on the Science theme. 

Sue is an active STEMNet ambassador and the member of a group which organises an annual Schools Science Conference, this year held virtually. This welcomes several hundred students each year and has been awarded CSO Awards and the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Services (MBE for voluntary sector) as a result. 

Rob Anderson

National Institute for Biological Standards and Controls

No bio provided

Joanna Andrew

Network Lead for Blood Sciences,

Joanna is the network lead for Blood Sciences at the newly created Scarborough, Hull, York Pathology Service, responsible for managing blood sciences across 4 hospitals. She has worked in York for almost 25 years and as a manager for the past 20 years, gaining considerable experience of dealing with change and people.

Joanna is proud to be a biomedical scientist and has been the IBMS Yorkshire Region Council Member for the past 5 years.

Dr Carlos Gonzalez Arias

Consultant Haematologist in Lymphoma and CAR T cell therapy , Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Carlos trained in Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau in Barcelona in 2014, completed his PhD in Medical Science at the University of Cambridge in 2019 and became a Consultant Haematologist at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation in 2020.

Dr Carlos specialises in lymphoma and cellular therapies and has a robust translational and clinical research portfolio, with involvement in over sixty clinical trials in lymphoma and cellular therapies.

Charlotte Atkin

Higher Specialist Biomedical Scientist, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

Charlotte is a Higher Specialist Biomedical Scientist within Routine Chemistry. She has nearly a decade of experience within NHS laboratories having started as a Medical Laboratory Assistant within Path Links and then progressing through the Biomedical Science career path to her current senior role at Nottinham University Hospitals.

Her main interests are with verification of new analytical equipment within the lab, and training and leadership development of the team.

Dr Lisa Ayers

HSST Training Programme Director and Associate Dean for Healthcare Science, South East England

Lisa is the Training Programme Director for the Higher Specialist Scientific Training programme at the National School of Healthcare Science and the Regional Dean for Healthcare Science in the South East. She trained and worked as a Clinical Scientist in Clinical Immunology, during which time she completed a PhD and obtained Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathology by examination.

Lisa recently gained equivalence to join the HSS Register in Clinical Immunology. She is passionate about developing and expanding training and educational opportunities for Healthcare Scientists at all stages in their career.

Divine Azange CSci FIBMS

National Pathology Clinical Fellow, NHS England & Improvement

Divine is Chartered Scientist and Fellow if the IBMS and currently works as a National pathology clinical fellow within Transformation team at NHSE&I. A key ambition of the National pathology transformation team is delivering a clinically led transformation strategy to Pathology services in England as per recommendation 4 of Lord Carter’s report .

In the last year he has been focused on implementing measures for analysing service quality, efficiency and effectiveness, clinical staff deployment and workforce productivity in Pathology services in England. A biomedical scientist by background, he is a critical thinker passionate about addressing innovation in pathology, health inequalities and value-based pathology.

Innovation within diagnostics is a key interest, He is an Honorary lecturer at University of Kent , teaching on the Biomedical science, He is a part of the HEE health innovator pilot . He is a Mentor, Coach ,Trainer, CPD officer and IBMS portfolio assessor supporting key initiatives such as the community diagnostic centres program amongst others.

Other interests include improving digital solutions to support demand optimisation, pathways referral and education. He is an advocate of expanding roles of biomedical scientist in the direct delivery of patient care and wider healthcare.

Dr Catherine Bailey

Consultant Clinical Scientist, Aneurin Bevan University Health Board

After completing a PhD in the Haematology Department at the University Hospital of Wales investigating the molecular genetics of Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia, Catherine was appointed to a trainee Clinical Scientist post on the Wales rotation.

On completion of training she secured a Senior Biochemist post at the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport. Following completion of FRCPath Catherine was appointed to as Consultant Clinical Biochemist in Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, where she is currently Head of the Blood Sciences Department.

Catherine is also the joint All-Wales Biochemistry Standardisation lead and currently overseeing the standardisation and configuration of the Biochemistry module of the replacement All-Wales LIMS.

Professor Barbara Bain

Professor of Diagnostic Haematology, Imperial College London

Professor Barbara Bain started her career in haematology, in Australia, more than 50 years ago. She now works in diagnostic haematology only but was previously involved also in clinical haematology. She has worked at: Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane; Hammersmith Hospital London; and St Mary's Hospital, London. She is the author or co-author of books on blood cell morphology, bone marrow pathology, haemoglobinopathy diagnosis and leukaemia diagnosis.

Peter Baker

Clinical Scientist, British Society of Haematology Guidelines - Laboratory Assays

Peter is Laboratory lead for Haemostasis at the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust incorporating the Oxford Haemophilia and Thrombosis Centre. He has more than 30 years’ experience in Haematology, training at Addenbrookes Hospital Cambridge as a Biomedical Scientist before moving to Oxford in 1998 to take up the position of Chief Biomedical Scientist in Haemostasis, transitioning to a Clinical Scientist in 2003.

Peter is a member of the British Society for Haematology and sits on the Haemostasis and Thrombosis Task Force. His main interests include the development and translation of new techniques and technologies into routine haemostasis testing.

Carly Batson

Senior Biomedical Scientist , University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust

Carly is a Senior Biomedical Scientist and Training Officer in Haematology and Blood Transfusion at Macclesfield District General Hospital that is part of the North Midlands and Cheshire Pathology Services. She has just over 10 years experience of working within a busy laboratory environment and has completed the Certificate of Expert Practice in Quality Management, is currently completing the Certificate of Expert Practice in Training.

Carly successfully gained Fellowship with the IBMS in 2018 by successfully completing the Higher Specialist Diploma in Haematology. The case study presented today is taken from a real patient case of P.Knowlesi in 2018 and submitted as part of her portfolio of evidence submitted to the IBMS whilst completing her HSD.

Dr Richard Battle

Consultant Clinical Scientist , Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service

No bio provided

Tracey Bennett

The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust

No bio provided

Liz Berry

North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust

Liz is the POCT Manager for North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Trust. She manages over 170 POCT devices across the Trust which generate over 62,000 results per month. Working with hospital staff over a number of different sites, Liz ensures the POCT results generated are quality assured and that over 3300 staff are trained and competency assessed in device use. She has been a Biomedical Scientist for over 20 years. After qualifying from Sunderland University, she undertook her training in the Histopathology Department at Kings College Hospital, before moving to Carlisle in 2000 to take up a senior post in the Histology laboratory. A few years after, Liz was promoted to Chief Biomedical Scientist in the department, which in time also lead to managing the mortuaries across the Trust. Reconfiguration of the Pathology Department created the role of POCT Manager, which Liz has been in position for almost 10 years and where she feels she has now found her niche.

Liz is a module tutor on the IBMS CEP for POCT and is passionate about ensuring that POCT is managed effectivity with the best possible outcomes for the patient. When not at work Liz can be found adventuring around Cumbria with her family and canine companion, Lucky.

Lord Bethell

No bio provided

Katherine Birch

Principal Clinical Scientist, The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust

Professor Richard Body

Professor in Emergency Medicine, University of Manchester and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

Richard is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Manchester. He undertakes clinical work and is Director of Research & Innovation at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, which includes two major trauma centres and ten hospitals. His research interests include the evaluation of diagnostic tests, particularly for COVID-19 and acute coronary syndromes. He has led numerous research studies focusing on clinical pathways to rule in/out acute myocardial infarction with a single blood test in the Emergency Department. Professor Body is Deputy National Specialty Lead for Trauma & Emergency Care at the NIHR Clinical Research Network (UK).

Phillip Bonnet

Peer Coordinator Birmingham & West Midlands, The Hepatitis C Trust

Philippe has over 15 years’ experience as a drug worker and trainer for various drug treatment providers. He is the Chair of the National Needle Exchange Forum and a Consultant on injecting equipment, naloxone formulations and Opioid Substitution Therapy products. He specialises in Harm Reduction and Blood Borne Viruses, and has been testing the most marginalised for HCV for over 12 years. He has used all manner of diagnostic tools, from venous samples, to dried blood spot to actual RNA capillary testing.

Philippe believes the best chance of eliminating HCV is to take the treatment to people, as opposed to expect people to attend various appointments to get treated. He has made documentaries on injecting drug use, is a regular speaker at national events and guest on national radio and television programmes. He is a strong opponent to the War on Drugs and believes people who struggle with their drug use should be supported rather than punished.

Dr Annette Bowyer

Clinical Scientist, The Royal Hallamshire Hospital

Dr Annette is the Scientific Lead for Haemophilia Assays in the Department of Coagulation at Sheffield Haemophilia and Thrombosis Centre, Sheffield, UK, which has been designated an International Haemophilia Training Centre by the World Federation of Haemophilia. She was awarded her PhD in Cardiovascular Science from the University of Sheffield, UK, with a thesis focussing on the laboratory diagnosis of mild haemophilia A, and has more than 20 years’ experience in the diagnosis and monitoring of bleeding disorders. Her current interest is on laboratory issues surrounding treatment products for haemophilia and von Willebrand disease.

Dr Bowyer is a member of both the UK Haemophilia Centre Doctors’ Organisation (UKHCDO) Laboratory Working Party and the World Federation of Haemophilia laboratory working party, a fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Science, and a member of the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis and the European Association for Haemophilia and Allied Disorders.

Leanne Boxshall

Senior Biomedical Scientist, Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust

Leanne is a Senior BMS working in Toxicology at Wansbeck General Hospital, where she has worked since 2014, and leads the technical side of the service. Prior to that in 2002 she started working within the General Biochemistry department at the same Hospital Trust as a sandwich course student, before becoming a full-time qualified state registered member of staff in 2004.

The Toxicology lab at Wansbeck is the main referral lab for toxicology analysis in the Northeast and handles work from local Coroners as well as samples from maternity, emergency admissions and the drug and alcohol local clinics.

Since starting in toxicology, the lab has managed to increase the small team to 5 members off staff. Consisting of a Clinical Scientist, one BMS 2, one BMS 1, one MLA and one temporary AP.

In 2018 Leanne was involved with the installation of the Xevo G2-XS QTOF mass spectrometer and has led on the use of this equipment for screening post-mortem and clinical samples and also in the analysis of drug substances. More recently she was involved with the procurement and installation of two Xevo TQ-S UPLC analysers.

Dr Victoria Bradley

Healthcare Science Programme Director, Cardiff Metropolitan University

Victoria began her career in Biomedical Science as a trainee at Southport and Formby District General Hospital whilst undertaking a part-time degree at Liverpool John Moores University.

Following a move to Morriston Hospital in Swansea she undertook a Masters in Biomedical Science, specialising in Clinical Chemistry, at the University of the West of England. She was appointed as the Chemical Pathology training manager for Swansea Bay Health Board in 2008 and completed a professional doctorate in Biomedical Science in 2013 at Portsmouth University.

In 2015 she made the move to academia, taking up a lecturers post at Cardiff Metropolitan University, and in 2021 was appointed as Programme Director for Healthcare Science.

Clare Brailsford

PID UK

As the parent of a daughter who, at the age of 7, was diagnosed with Common Variable Immunodeficiency (CVID) Clare Brailsford will be speaking about CVID from the perspective of a parent.  Clare will be offering some insights into living with and caring for a child who has a primary immunodeficiency.  A librarian by profession, without a scientific or medical background, Clare and her husband suddenly found themselves having to come to terms, not only with the diagnosis of a chronic illness for their child, and the potentially life-threatening and life-limiting nature of the illness, but also how to manage and administer medical treatments to provide the best level of care for their daughter. 

Dr Michelle Brereton

Chief Biomedical Scientist, Haematological Cancer Diagnostics Service, Manchester Foundation Trust

Dr Michelle is the Chief Biomedical Scientist for the Haematological Cancer Diagnostics Service at the Manchester Foundation Trust.

A key member of the Team, she helps to develop and create cases for the Digital Morphology CPD scheme run by UKNEQAS(H) which is currently has over 3000 individuals registered for participation. Her doctorate qualification explored the errors made in morphology reporting and she has also published work on this subject.

Dr David Brettle

Trust Chief Scientific Officer, The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

David is the Chief Scientific Officer for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. His background is in Medical Physics particularly in radiological imaging and image processing. As well as leading the healthcare science workforce in Leeds he is actively involved in health innovation as part of the two new hospitals being built for 2026. He was President of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine between 2015 and 2017 and is an Honorary Professor in Health Science at the University of Salford.

Since 2014 he has been working in Digital Pathology as part of the now National Pathology Imaging Co-operative based in Leeds. His primary activity in NPIC relates to image quality in digital pathology and its potential impact on artificial intelligence.

Stephanie Brooks

Senior Biomedical Andrologist & Quality Manager, The Hewitt Fertility Centre, Liverpool Women’s Hospital

Senior Biomedical Andrologist & Quality Manager, Stephanie Brooks has worked at the Hewitt Fertility Centre at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital since 1998. By 2008 the Andrology services had grown to a size where they needed to introduce a supervisory role, a role which Stephanie has performed for the last 10 years. The Quality management role has developed with the implementation of UKAS in their diagnostic service which then infiltrates through the HFEA licenced centre. As a founder member of the ABA and inaugural member of ARCS, Stephanie’s involvement with professional bodies has been long term.

‘I always wanted to be a scientist but didn’t want to just look down a microscope. My job gives me the opportunity to work both in the lab and directly with patients which is the part of my job which gives me most satisfaction. My work involves providing a credible diagnostic service for our users and service for our Oncology patients, which is hugely important as we provide storage of gametes to this vulnerable group in order to preserve their future fertility.’

She has overseen the implementation of UKAS at her place of work which include 4 satellite centres. The maintenance of accreditation had been achieved for the past 6 years. Working with the ethos of Quality management also encompasses the quality of the service, staff and patient satisfaction and improving the working environment.

Dr Kevin Brown

UK Health Security Agency

Dr Kevin is a Consultant Medical Virologist within the Immunisation and Vaccine Preventable Diseases Division in UK Health Security Agency, (formerly Public Health England, Health Protection Agency, and Public Health Laboratory Service). As part of his responsibilities he heads the Immunisation and Diagnosis Unit, which has a primary interest in vaccine-preventable viral infections and is one of the WHO Global Laboratories for Measles and Rubella. Kevin obtained his medical degree from Cambridge University in 1982 and worked in general medicine and infectious diseases before specialising in Virology.

In 1988 he joined the Virus Reference Laboratory in the Public Health Laboratory Service, and began his work on parvovirus biology. In 1992 he went to the National Institutes of Health in Maryland (USA) to continue his research, and for many years there led the Virus Discovery Group for the Haematology Branch of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. In 2006 he returned to the UK to his current position as Head of the Immunisation and Diagnosis Unit in the Virus Reference Department, Health Protection Agency. He was clinical lead and deputy director of Virus Reference Department before his move to the Immunisation Department in April 2018 as part of the restructuring within Public Health England. Since COVID he has been primarily involved in studies of the serological response to SARS-CoV2 to support the COVID vaccine response.

His areas of interest includes parvoviruses, measles, mumps, rubella, VZV, rabies and all aspects of virus discovery and newly emerging viruses. He has published approximately 200 manuscripts in peer reviewed journals and is an author of numerous chapters in virology and infectious disease textbooks. He serves as a member of Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation.

Dr Nigel Brown

Consultant Clinical Scientist, Wansbeck General Hospital

No bio provided

Alyson Bryant

Healthcare Accreditation Specialist, UKAS

Alyson spent 15 years in NHS cellular pathology laboratories prior to moving to UKAS 7 years ago. She started at UKAS as an assessment manager for ISO 15189:2012 laboratories, during the CPA transition project.

Throughout 2020 and 2021, Alyson was heavily involved in UKAS's response to the Covid pandemic, with particular focus on the private providers of Covid-19 testing since December 2020. She is now working as the Healthcare Accreditation Specialist, providing technical oversight for the whole Healthcare section of UKAS, to ensure they remain up-to-date and responsive to their customer's needs.

Dr Tom Bullock DClinSci FRCPath FIBMS

Consultant Clinical Scientist, Red Cell Immunohaematology - NHS Blood and Transplant

Tom is a Consultant Clinical Scientist, working in the Clinical Services directorate of NHS Blood & Transplant in Bristol. He has a specialist interest in Red Cell Immunohaematology (RCI) and currently works providing specialist transfusion advice for the national network of RCI laboratories.

He is one of the first Scientists in the UK to complete the Higher Specialist Scientific Training (HSST) programme and has a Doctorate in Clinical Science (DClinSci) and FRCPath qualification, specialising in clinical transfusion science.

He has a keen interest in training and education, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Biomedical Science (FIBMS) and a Fellow of the British Blood Transfusion Society (FBBTS).

Phillipa Burns MSc FIBMS CSci DipRCPath

Principal Clinical Scientist (HSST) - Medical Microbiology, Scarborough, Hull and York Pathology Service

Working as Principal Clinical Scientist in Medical Microbiology, Philipa is completing the HSST programme in the newly formed Scarborough, Hull, York Pathology (SHYPS) Network. She is a member of the IBMS specialist advisory committee for Medical Microbiology and is passionate about the training and development of Biomedical Scientists across the UK.

Formerly Philipa was Deputy Laboratory Manager for Manchester Foundation Trust, working in partnership with PHE, now UKHSA.

Dr John Burthem

Consultant Haematologist, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

John is Consultant Haematologist and Clinical Senior Lecturer and lead for the Haematological Cancer Diagnositics Partnership based at Manchester Hospitals. With a particular Interest in morphology he Chairs the Scientific Advisory Group for Morphology at UK NEQAS(H).

Together with Michelle Brereton, John provide images, annotations and feedback for the UK NEQAS(H) Digital Morphology Scheme and is the main author of haematologyetc.co.uk - a wiki help for morphology and other aspects of haematology diagnosis.

Dr José Cabeçadas

Oncology Institute of Lisbon, Portugal

José was educated with an MD degree at Universidade Nova de Lisboa. He also has undertaken a Fellowship at the department of Histopatology, University College London Medical School, under Professor Peter Isaacson. His specialism is in Pathology since 1993.

He has been a Past President, at the Portuguese College of Pathologists as well as Past vice-President for the Portuguese Society of Pathology. Currently, he is a member of the board of Euroclonality, the external scientific board of the Portuguese Tissue Bank Network and of the UK NEQAS ICC & ISH Scientific Advisory Board.

With a main interest in Haemathopathology, José is a member of Sociedade de Ciências Médicas de Lisboa, Sociedade Portuguesa de Anatomia Patológica, Portuguese Division of the International Academy of Pathology, European Society of Pathology and the European Association for Haematopathology (Member of the executive committee 1010- 2014).

Dr Richard Capstick

Infectious Diseases Physician and Consultant Virologist, Sunderland Royal Hospital, South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust

Richard is an Infectious Diseases Physician and Consultant Virologist. He initially trained in Infectious Diseases and General Medicine before switching to Infectious Diseases and Virology midway through training. He spent the majority of his training at the Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine Department in Newcastle.

Richard started as a consultant at the South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust at the start of 2022. He is the first Infectious Diseases and Virology consultant to work in the trust and is excited about the prospect of developing a new service for patients in the local area and growing the South of Tyne Virology Laboratory. He has a particular interest in HIV, TB, tropical infections and teaching.

Dr Mike Carter

Former Scientific Education and Training Manager, Formerly Public Health England

Mike retired in 2019 from a 46-year career in medical laboratory science. He has a degree in microbiology from Surrey University and a PhD in medical microbiology from the University of Southampton.

Mike began work as a Junior A medical laboratory technician in 1973 in Liverpool Public Health Laboratory then moved to the Pathology Laboratory of Fazakerley Hospital followed by a move to the clinical microbiology laboratory of the Royal Liverpool Hospital until 1982 when he moved, for three years, to the medical microbiology laboratory of Riyadh Military Hospital, Saudi Arabia.

Mike started work in the Colindale Laboratory of Public Health England in 1993 as a clinical scientist in the Respiratory and Systemic Infection Laboratory and reverted to being a biomedical scientist in 2000. He worked in various Colindale laboratories and spent his last 15 years, until his retirement, as the Scientific Education and Training Manager at Colindale, setting up and leading a highly successful placement programme for biomedical science undergraduates giving 167 students one-year placements.

During this time, Mike worked with several universities, becoming an external examiner and visiting lecturer, and participating in university employer liaison groups. He remains a member of the University of Westminster’s Employability Advisory Board.

Mike’s IBMS activities include member of IBMS Liverpool Branch Committee (LBC), Chair of the LBC Sports and Social Sub-Committee, member and Sponsorship Officer of the IBMS London Microbiology Discussion Group, member of the IBMS Medical Microbiology Scientific Advisory Panel, member and Education Officer of the IBMS London Regional Committee, registration verifier, equivalence assessor, Biomedical Scientist Practitioner Representative for IBMS Degree Accreditation, a Service Provider Representative on the IBMS Service User and Carer Engagement Group and an IBMS Support Hub panel member.

Mike returned to work in March 2020 to assist PHE colleagues with their work dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Jill Caulfield

Lead Specialist, Blood Stocks Management Scheme, NHSBT

After starting her career as an MLA in 1995 in Haematology and Blood Transfusion, Jill qualified as a Biomedical Scientist in 2000. Later, she became a Blood Transfusion senior, then Technical Manager to three sites in the North East of England.

Although Jill found this both challenging and rewarding, she really wanted to make a difference nationally. She was fortunate enough to secure a position as Lead Specialist within the Blood stocks management scheme team in April 2021, where she now provides a service to over 300 hospitals in the UK. The scheme runs alongside NHSBT and together they help to monitor and preserve their precious blood stocks.

Dr Fiona Clark

Consultant Haematologist, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Ian Cocking

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Ian started his career back in 1996 as a Trainee Biomedical Scientist at Sheffield Public Health Laboratories. Since then he has worked in several microbiology laboratories including the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Doncaster Royal Infirmary, Pinderfield Hospital and now Leeds Teaching Hospitals where he is the Pathology Service Manager for Microbiology. Ian is currently the Chair of the Microbiology Specialist Advisory Panel for the IBMS and Chair of Sheffield Microbe.

Whilst at Pinderfields Hospital, Ian was involved in the PFI build of the new hospital and the new Pathology laboratory. This is where he first experienced the importance of good laboratory design and developed the skills and knowledge of building, designing and commissioning a new laboratory. He is now part of a multidisciplinary team starting to build a £30m new “state of the art” pathology building at Leeds Teaching Hospitals. This will be the newest laboratory facility in the UK and set for completion in Autumn 2023.

As part of the project Ian also oversaw the implementation of a £300m managed service contract, new pathology IT LIMS and the collaboration of the North 2 network for NHSi.

Nigel Coles

Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Michael Collins

Technical Specialist Manager Microbiology, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust

Michael is currently employed as Specialist Technical Manager in MIcrobiology within Derbyshire Pathology, a recently formed contracted joint venture between the pathology departments of Royal Derby Hospital , Queens Hospital Burton and Chesterfield Royal Hospital. He as special interest in mycology particularly emerging fungal infections and antifungal resistance.

Previous posts in biomedical science at Hudersfield Royal Infirmary and Derby Royal Hospital and research experience in capsule formation in E. coli K5 at Leiscester University

Gary Collins

Quality Manager , University Hospital Crosshouse

No bio provided

Gillian Collins

NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital,

No bio provided

Professor Thomas Connor

Professor of pathogen genomics and bioinformatics and Bioinformatics Lead for Pathogen Genomics, Public Health Wales, University Hospital Wales and Cardiff University School of Biosciences, Cardiff

Professor Connor, works at the interface of pathogen genomics research and service delivery. He has built a significant research track record in the area of bacterial genomics and antimicrobial resistance in gastrointestinal pathogens, publishing extensively in high impact journals including Science, Cell, Nature and Nature genetics, and being involved in research grants collectively worth more than £50M.

As part of his wider activities, Professor Connor plays a major role in the MRC CLoud Infrastructure for Microbial Bioinformatics, a national e-infrastructure that provides computational capacity to underpin pathogen genomics research. Since 2016 Prof. Connor has led the bioinformatics development of accredited clinical pathogen genomics services within PHW, translating his research expertise into clinical practice. This has included the development of a set of end-to-end services that are accredited to ISO 15189 standard. Since March 2020 he has led sequencing efforts in Wales and the wider UK focused on SARS-CoV-2, resulting in the sequencing and real-time use of over 145,000 Welsh SARS-CoV-2 genomes to date.

Andrew Connor

Advanced Practitioner Clinical Biochemistry, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust

Andrew was born and raised in Grimsby and studied MBiomedSci at the University of Hull as a sandwich course. After placement at Diana Princess of Wales Hospital, he stayed where he remains still. He specialised in clinical biochemistry and undertook the IBMS higher specialist portfolio which his case study was originally written for.

Andrew currently works as Advanced practitioner in Clinical Biochemistry where they use two Roche C8000 quad lines with two c702 and two e801 modules each and two preanalytical p512 machines. Grimsby is part of a network called Pathlinks and is known as the capacity lab for blood sciences where they deal with the majority of GP surgery samples from throughout the county of Lincolnshire.

Adam Crosbie

Qualification Fraud Policy Officer, JISC

Adam is qualification fraud policy officer at Jisc. He is part of the team that manages the UK's official degree verification service Hedd and he leads Jisc's work on qualification fraud reporting and best practice. Adam has worked with the Department for Education and the Office for Students on qualification fraud initiatives and is a regular speaker at industry and sector conferences.

Leanne Cross

Senior Anticoagulation Practitioner, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals

Leanne is currently a Senior Anticoagulation Practitioner for Blackpool Teaching Hospitals in which she is POCT lead. Within her role she manages equipment, quality and provide advice for VKA and DOAC anticoagulation.

Leanne first qualified as a Biomedical Scientist in haematology, anticoagulation and transfusion in 2001. In 2014/15 she took a role in quality for Haematology and transfusion to move the department from CPA to ISO standards. In 2017, she became an advanced Biomedical Scientist in Blood Transfusion responsible for quality. In 2020, she became Senior Anticoagulation Practitioner.

John Crossley

Digital Diagnostic Cytology EQA Scheme Coordinator, UK NEQAS

Maria Cunningham

Senior Biomedical Scientist, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast

Maria is a senior biomedical scientist in the Cytopathology laboratory based at the Institute of Pathology, Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast.

Maria commenced her training in 2005 at Craigavon Area Hospital where she gained a passion for Cellular Pathology. Whilst undertaking numerous diplomas, including the City and Guilds in Cervical Cytology, the Specialist and Higher Specialist in Cellular Pathology supplemented with a skilled laboratory work force has been influential in her career.

Maria has previously presented at the Northern Ireland Colposcopy Conference and as an IBMS Fellow is a keen advocate for personal development and encourages shared learning for professional progression. 

Maria is currently focusing on undertaking the Diploma of Expert Practice in Non-Gynaecological Cytology.

Dr Kate Cuschieri FRCPath

Director, Scottish HPV Reference Laboratory, Scottish HPV Reference Laboratory, NHS Lothian

Kate is a consultant clinical scientist in virology at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and director of the Scottish HPV Reference Lab - she is also lead for the HPV research group at the Centre for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh

Dr Mahomed Dada MBChB, FRCPath, MMed, Occupational Med, MMed

Consultant Histopathologist, University Hospitals of Derby & Burton NHS Foundation Trust

Mahomed (Mo) is a consultant histopathologist based in Derby. He is a general histopathologist and cytopathologist with special interest in Breast Pathology, Dermatopathology , and Gastro-intestinal Pathology. His research interests have ranged from neuropathology, tumour pathology, autopsy pathology, medical law, bioethics and human rights. Publications include co-authorship of articles and books on forensic medicine, medical law and bioethics.

His post-nominals include: MBChB, FRCPath, MMed (Forensic Path), Dip Occupational Med, MMed (Anatomical Path), International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance (CIHC/Fordham University), Postgraduate Certificate in Genomic Medicine (Birmingham),

Bruce Daniel

Head of Pathology, South West Region , NHS England & Improvement

Bruce is currently the Head of Pathology for the South West region of NHSE&I having previously been the Pathology service manager in Truro, the Pathology Incident Director during covid for the South 1 (Peninsula) network and a member of the South 1 network board. His background is as a biomedical scientist in Clinical Chemistry at Truro.

During Bruce's career across 35 years in the NHS he has also enjoyed roles as an imaging service manager, and divisional manager of a clinical support division and a medicine and ED division. His current interests are in all things digital, externalising pathology and point of care testing

Minal Dave

Barts Health NHS Trust

No bio provided

Will Davies

Senior Biomedical Scientist, Worcester Royal Hospital, Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust

Will has practiced as a Biomedical Scientist for over 20 years in teaching hospital and district general hospital departments. Over the years he has developed a broad knowledge of quality improvement tools and now formally teaches these to staff from acute, health and care and commissioning backgrounds.

Will is currently project managing the implementation of a regional digital pathology system for a number of Acute Trusts in the West Midlands and is supporting UKNEQAS CPT in their development of a Digital pathology EQA scheme.

Emma Davies

Clinical Scientist, UK Health Security Agency, Manchester Foundation Trust Virology Laboratory

Emma is a Clinical Scientist based in the UKHSA virology laboratory at Manchester University Foundation trust where she has been based for 7 years as part of the Higher Specialist Scientific Training (HSST) programme. She has a special interest in infections in immunocompromised children, with a particular focus on adenovirus in bone marrow transplant patients.

Emma is also particularly interested in molecular diagnostics with a focus on assay development and validation and whole genome sequencing applications. She has been heavily involved in the recent introduction of a new SARS-CoV-2 whole genome sequencing service into the UKHSA Manchester laboratory to aid in horizon scanning for variants of concern within the UK.

Michael Dawson

Medical Wire Equipment

No bio provided

Tracy De Haro

Specialist Scientific Lead for Electron Microscopy, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust

No bio provided

Professor Josu De La Fuente

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust

No bio provided

Dr Karin Denton

Consultant Cyto/Histopathologist and Chair of NHSEI Cervical Screening Laboratory CPG , Severn Pathology North Bristol NHS Trust

Dr Karin is a consultant cytopathologist in Bristol and leads one of the 8 English cervical screening laboratories. She is Director of the South West cytology training centre and chairs the laboratory Clinical Advisory group, which advises NHS EI. She has a long standing interest in Quality Assurance and was formerly Regional Head of Screening Quality Assurance for PHE.
 

Dr Karin has long had a leading role in changes and developments to the cervical screening programme, going back to the first HPV/LBC pilot in 2001. She currently chairs the HPV development group which leads the analysis and publication of outcomes from the HPV primary screening pilots. Karin is a former Chair of the BSCC and inaugural President of the BAC

Jessica Dixon

Milton Keynes University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Jessica is currently the Acting Deputy Services Manager at Milton Keynes University Hospital NHs Foundation Trust. This role incorporates her substantial role as the Pathology quality manager. She trained at University of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, before becoming a specialist biomedical scientist at Wythenshawe Hospital.

Moving to a private sector analytical laboratory Jessica began to carve out her interest in quality and governance, taking this laboratory through the UKAS accreditation process from scratch. A move to North Cumbria as Quality Manager consolidated her passion for Quality management before taking on her current role.

Kerry Dowling

Transfusion Laboratory Manager, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust

Kerry has been the laboratory manager in an acute trust with multiple clinical specialities including trauma and transplant for 8 years. She has a keen interest in technology and education leading her to take up the role of the chair of the UKTLC. She is also the deputy chair of the national laboratory managers group for Blood Transfusion.

Professor Joe Duffy

St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin

Professor Duffy who is based at St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin and University College, Dublin has an international reputation for his research in cancer biomarkers, having published in excess of 250 papers on the topic. In addition to his research and clinical work, Professor Duffy served as a member of 2 International Expert Panels for establishing guidelines on the clinical use of tumor markers, i.e., the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry (NACB) (USA) and the European Group on Tumor Markers (EGTM).

Professor Duffy received his BSc (Hons) from the National University of Ireland at Galway (Ireland) and his PhD from the University of Manchester. In 2012, Professor Duffy was the recipient of the 2012 Abbott Award of the International Society of Oncology and BioMarkers (ISOBM). This award is made annually to investigators, world-wide, who have made an outstanding contribution in the field of basic or clinical oncology research. Other awards received by Professor Duffy include the St Luke’s Medal Lecture, the Conway Review Medal Lecture and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland and the National Committee for Biochemistry Award Medal Lecture of the Royal Irish Academy.

Louise Dunk

Public Health Wales

Louise began her career as a trainee Medical Laboratory Scientist working in Cervical Cytology and Histology, and continued working as a Biomedical Scientist for over 30 years in various roles within Laboratory Medicine, eventually being appointed Directorate Manager for Laboratory Medicine at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.

She has worked for Public Health Wales as Head of Programme for Cervical Screening Wales (CSW) since 2017, and her role covers provision of all elements of the national screening programme including programme standards, quality assurance and governance, managing the population database and the call, recall and failsafe of women, sample taker training, the commissioning of Colposcopy within Wales, and engagement and uptake. During her time in the programme Wales has introduced HPV primary screening, national virtual sample taker training and e-learning, and recently extended the screening interval to five years for participants under 50.

However this April she will be taking early retirement after working for over 37 years in NHS and will be swapping her laptop and Teams access for walking boots and the Ordnance Survey App, and continuing her quest to walk the entire circumference of Wales

Dr Yasser El-Sherbini

Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences, Nottingham Trent University

Dr El-Sherbiny is a senior lecturer in Biomedical Sciences in Biosciences, College of Science and Technology at Nottingham Trent University. He is contributing to teaching and leadership of multiple modules and supervising postgraduate and undergraduate research. His primary research focuses on innate immunology, pathogenesis and interferon pathways in rheumatological and autoimmune disorders from a precision medicine perspective. He is also interested in understanding the role of mesenchymal stem cells in immunomodulation and regenerative medicine to guide treatment choices and improve clinical outcome.

After completing his medical training at Mansoura Faculty of Medicine MBBCH 1993, Dr El-Sherbiny began his training as a clinical pathologist in 1995 at Mansoura University Hospitals. During this time he completed his master’s degree in immuno-haematology. Dr El-Sherbiny then moved to the UK and obtained his PhD in Immunology and Molecular Medicine from the University of Leeds in 2007. Following his first Post-doctoral position in Cancer Research UK at Leeds in 2010, Dr El-Sherbiny Joined Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine to continue his translational research in rheumatology until he joined Nottingham Trent University in October 2018.

Research areas:

• Discovery of predictive biomarkers in rheumatological disorders
• Investigating interferon pathway regulation/dysregulation & implications on immune signalling
• Mesenchymal Stem cells immunomodulation vs regeneration, towards innovative immunotherapeutic tactics
• Investigating omics changes in COVID-19.

Chris Elliott

Lead Scientist – Transfusion, James Cook University Hospital

Chris started working in London in 1984 moving through a succession of transfusion and transplantation posts within the capital before moving to the North of England to manage transfusion at Middlesbrough and then later Leeds and Bradford hospitals. Since moving back to Middlesbrough he has been Blood Bank Manager and then overall Haematology Services Manager.

Chris has recently returned to a more scientific and clinical role supporting the medical and scientific teams in the provision and development of transfusion services and Patient Blood Management across the trust while also retaining the responsibilities of a Blood Bank Manager. 

Chris has sat on several national steering committees (e.g. UKNEQAS) and continues to sit on a number of BCSH national guideline writing committees. He is currently the chair of the IBMS specialist advisory panel for transfusion and sit on the UK National Blood Transfusion Committee and also the MHRA Blood Consultative Committee.

Professor Lise Estcourt

Associate Professor of Haematology and Transfusion Medicine, University of Oxford, Director of NHSBT Clinical Trials Unit , NHSBT

Lise is a Consultant in Haematology and Transfusion Medicine at NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), Oxford and an Associate Professor in Haematology and Transfusion Medicine at the University of Oxford. She is the Director of NHSBT’s Clinical Trials Unit, the Clinical Lead for the National Comparative Audit in Blood Transfusion, Clinical Tutor for NHSBT, and the Co-ordinating editor for Cochrane Haematology. She has authored and co-authored more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals.

 Lise led the convalescent plasma transfusion trials on behalf of NHSBT (transfusion aspects of RECOVERY and REMAP-CAP trials) with Professor David Roberts. Her other interests include: the safe and appropriate use of blood components; alternatives to blood transfusion; risk factors for bleeding in haematology patients; and systematic reviews.

Matthew Fairbrother

Specialist Biomedical Scientist / Lecturer in Biomedical Science , University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, and Nottingham Trent University

No bio provided

Bamidele Farinre FIBMS, MSc, BSc

Operations Lead - Virology, The Acacium Group in partnership with HCA Labs

Bamidele Farinre, is Biomedical Scientist and is a Scientific Lead and Training and Development Lead for (Covid-19 Mobile Processing Units (MPUs) at the London Medical Lab (LML). She is responsible for training and development of biomedical scientists, associate practitioners, and medical lab assistants to perform and manage the analysis of COVID-19 swab samples using RT-LAMP technology. She has been instrumental in leading, designing and implementing the June Almeida Lab based in the Franklin Wilkins Building, Waterloo London. This was a collaborative project between Kings College London and Viapath Analytics, An NHS Partnership with SYNLAB. Using her knowledge and skills in molecular virology she has ensured that good laboratory processes and training were implemented throughout this project.

Bamidele is a member of the IBMS Virology Specialist Advisory Panel in addition to being a WISE campaign role model for ‘My Skills My Life’, inspiring the Future STEM ambassador, Mentor, Freedom to Speak Up ambassador, British Science Association (BSA) Crest award assessor, IBMS CPD officer.

Dr Kata Farkas

Environmental Virologist, Bangor University

Dr Kata competed her PhD in microbiology at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand in 2014. Her research focused on the fate and behaviour of enteric viruses in groundwater. After finishing her studies, she was involved in various project that uses viral metagenomics approaches to identify viruses (both known and novel) in various ecosystems. '

Since 2015, she has been working at the Bangor University, on the Viraqua Project (www.viraqua.uk; 2015-2018), at the Shellfish Centre (2019-onward) and leading the COVID-19 wastewater surveillance lab (2020-onward).

Dr Kata's research focuses on the ecology and survival of viruses in the aquatic environment with a special interest in the fate of enteric viruses. Enteric viruses are responsible for the majority of gastroenteral illnesses globally putting an enormous burden on healthcare systems and the wider economy. These pathogens are often found in water reservoirs (recreational and drinking water sources, shellfish harvesting areas) and hence responsible for water- and foodborne outbreaks. She designs and validates methods for the recovery of enteric viruses in the aquatic environment in order to quantify infectious viruses, understand viral ecology, describe novel and emerging strains and model viral transport in the environment.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, her research group has been investigating the usefulness of wastewater-based epidemiology for the support of outbreak response. Their approaches have been implemented in the English and Welsh surveillance programmes, which we have been contributed to a great deal. These programmes now cover ~70% of the population. They also work on variant detection and the implementation of wastewater surveillance for other viruses.

Penny Feather

Deputy Laboratory Manager in Immunology , Path Links North Lincolnshire & Goole NHS Foundation Trust

Penny is the Deputy Laboratory Manager in Immunology at Scunthorpe General Hospital, the Immunology hub of the PathLinks network. She is responsible for the day to day running of the laboratory and providing accurate, reliable results for 7 hospitals and the primary care of the surrounding areas.

Penny has have worked here for 2 1/2 years and previously was a biomedical scientist at Sheffield for 11 years, where she completed both her specialist and higher specialist portfolios.

Deborah Fenelon

Out-posted Scientist, Food Water & Environmental Laboratories, UK Health Security Agency

Following qualification as a Biomedical Scientist in 1988, Deborah began work at Birmingham City Hospital in the Microbiology Department before completing her Fellowship examination. She later progressed to a senior post working at Solihull Hospital and Heartlands (then PHLS) Microbiology Departments.

In 1999, Deborah moved into food, water and environmental microbiology - for what was supposed to be a six month temporary period. Here she worked for 15 years as Laboratory Manager for the Birmingham PHE FW&E Laboratory. In 2017 she took on the post of West Midlands Out-posted Scientist for the UKHSA (then PHE) FW&E Laboratory network.

Professor Mark Fielder

Professor of Medical Microbiology, Kingston University

Professor Mark Fielder was awarded a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Kings College London in 1995, winning the Tadion-Rideal Prize for outstanding postgraduate work. He then undertook Postdoctoral position at St Georges Hospital London on mucosal vaccination against Vibrio cholerae. After joining Kingston University as a lecturer (1998) in medical Microbiology, he was awarded a chair in Medical Microbiology in 2011.

Professor Fielder has acted as an advisor for the Clinical Laboratory Sciences Institute (Veterinary antimicrobial susceptibility testing) and sits on the independent science group for RUMA and on the steering group for SMIs. His research team is multidisciplinary working on rapid detection systems for infectious disease diagnosis and to overcome antimicrobial resistance in clinical and veterinary settings and looking at antibiotic overspill into wild raptors.

Professor Anthony Fooks

Director, World Health Organisation Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response Collaborating Centre

Dr Fooks is the former Head of the Virology Department at The Animal and Plant Health Agency and currently leads the International Development Team. Dr Fooks is Director of a World Health Organisation Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response Collaborating Centre and is an OIE Reference Expert for rabies. He is an Honorary Professor of Virology at the University of Liverpool, UK, an Honorary Professor in Viral Zoonoses at St. George’s University of London, UK and an Honorary Research Associate at the Zoological Society of London, University of London, UK. In 2005, Dr Fooks presented The Arthur Leighton-Young Memorial Prize Lecture and in 2006 was awarded the Camille Geurin prize by the Veterinary Academy of France for his book entitled ‘Historical Perspective of Rabies in Europe and the Mediterranean Basin’. Dr Fooks has co-edited and published additional books on rabies including, ‘Towards the Elimination of Rabies in Eurasia (2008), ‘Rabies: Towards Sustainable Prevention at the Source’ (2012), ‘Rabies’ (2018) and ‘Rabies: Scientific Basis of the Disease and Its Management’ (2020). In 2021,

Dr Fooks was a global recipient of an MSD Rabies Hero Award. Dr Fooks has published more than 350 scientific reports in international journals on a variety of viral pathogens and his scientific research remains focused on ‘One Health’, particularly emerging and zoonotic RNA viruses with a specific emphasis on the global elimination of dog-mediated human rabies.

Charley Frampton

Head of Human Resources, Berkshire & Surrey Pathology Services

Charley joined the NHS's Graduate Management Training Scheme in 2008, after graduating with a law degree. Over the past 13 years she has held HR management roles in a variety of NHS organisations, including acute, community and ambulance Trusts.

In 2019, Charley joined Berkshire and Surrey Pathology Services, where she now works as Head of HR. Her areas of interest include staff engagement and change management, and she is passionate about the NHS and its people.

Dr Mark Fraser

Clinical Scientist, Diagnostic Lead, UK National Mycology Reference Laboratory, UK Health Security Agency , Southwest Laboratory

The UK national reference laboratory is a small team of 13 people providing a complete diagnostic mycology service for the whole of the UK, processing over 50,000 diagnostic samples per annum. They provide expert identification and susceptibility testing for yeast and mould isolates, specific serological investigations, diagnostic PCR, environmental sampling and primary culture and isolation of fungi. They also hold the National Collection of Pathogenic Fungi (NCPF), a culture collection home to over 4,000 strains of clinically important fungi.

Mark has worked for the UKHSA MRL for 18 years and has undertaken all his professional qualifications in clinical mycology. He completed his BSc at the University of Bristol with joint honours in cellular pathology and microbiology, his MSc was undertaken in Bristol on medical microbiology and he was awarded a distinction and the Oxoid prize for best research project. Mark's PhD focused on novel approaches to the detection of antifungal resistance, in particular the use of MALDI-TOF MS.  He is a member of the editorial board for Medical Mycology and an executive committee member for the British Society of Medical Mycology.

Mark has taught at each of the universities in Bristol at both undergraduate and Masters level and examined viva voces, and written exam questions. He has mentored several BSc/MSc students with successful research projects in the  area of clinical mycology. He has also presented his research at international, national and local conferences and published over 40 papers on clinically relevant fungal infections and treatment.

Mark's research interests include the taxonmical revision of fungi and the application of this to clinical diagnostics, the development of MALDI-TOF MS as an identification tool for fungi, and the management and treatment of fungal infection.

Joanna Frost

Deputy Lab manager, Microbiology,

Joanna started her career at Path Links 21 years ago as a Trainee Biomedical Scientost in Microbiology. In this time she completed a Masters degree and a Postgraduate Certificate in Management. She is now a Training Officer and Deputy Lab Manager for Microbiology at Scunthorpe General Hospital.

Scott Gable

Cellular Pathology Services Manager, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board

Scott is a Biomedical Scientist with 26 years’ experience across District General Hospitals and Tertiary Centres, both in NHS England and NHS Wales. As a Fellow of the IBMS he is currently the Cellular Pathology and Mortuary Service Manager at the University Hospital of Wales. He was appointed as a UKAS technical assessor to assess against ISO 15189:2012 and as a scheme coordinator for UKNEQAS CPT.

Scott has represented the IBMS as a specialist Diploma assessor for Cellular Pathology and has undertaken a number of trips to sub-Saharan Africa supporting laboratory scientists in challenging environments.

Hedley Glencross CSci FIBMS

Lead Biomedical Scientist, Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust

Hedley is a registered and chartered biomedical scientist and lead for diagnostic cytology and andrology at Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth. He has worked in the NHS for approximately 36 years, plus over 8 years working at IBMS in membership services and examinations. He has in excess of 30 years’ experience in cytology but is also a trained histologist and neuro-histologist too.

Hedley has always had a strong education and training interest, having written, lectured and presented widely during his career, including a period managing a cytology training school. He has also worked professionally alongside his various day-to-day roles. He was for 10 years an IBMS Council member and the IBMS Specialist Advisor in Cytopathology for 5 years.

Hedley is currently an Executive Committee member of the British Association for Cytopathology and has recently been appointed as an associate editor for the journal Cytopathology with an educational brief. Although Hedley is due to retire in mid-2021, he will remain active, as alongside his new editorial role, he is involved in a cervical screening project in the Republic of Moldova and is both an active and founder member of the UK Global Cancer Network

Dr Andrew Godfrey

The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Godfrey is a Consultant Haematologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital with an interest in pro-coagulant states such as Cancer. He runs the Cancer Associated Thrombosis unit at RMH and the Haemostasis and Thrombosis service at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

Dr Godfrey is part of a team who published early in the COVID-19 pandemic about the aggressive use of anticoagulation in patients critically ill with COVID-19 and has ongoing research interests in optimal dosing and timing of anticoagulation in this setting.

Dr Keith Gomez

Consultant and Associate Professor in Haematology, Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Keith Gomez trained at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School, University of London, and graduated in 1992. After studying haematology in the North London training programme he joined the Haemostasis Research Group at the Medical Research Council in London. The primary area of research for his doctoral thesis was the development of models of tissue factor-initiated coagulation.

After award of his PhD Dr Gomez took up his current post as Consultant and Associate Professor in Haemostasis in the Haemophilia Centre and Thrombosis Unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London. His main research interests include the genetic basis of inherited disorders of coagulation, the diagnosis and management of platelet disorders and the clinical management of the rarer factor deficiencies.

Dr Gomez is the President of the British Society of Haemostasis and Thrombosis. He chairs the UKHCDO Genetics Working Party, the National Quality Assurance Advisory Panel for Haematology and the Haemostasis and Thrombosis Task Force for the British Society of Haematology. He is a co-chair of the ISTH SSC for Genomics in Thrombosis and Haemostasis.

Lynn Govan

Laboratory Manager , University Hospital Monklands

Lynn is currently the Laboratory Manager in the Pathology Dept at University Hospital Monklands. She has over 30 years experience in the Cytology Department and led the conversion of the service to HPV First testing within NHSL. In addition to Cervical Cytology, Lynn also supervises the ICC department & has been an ICC NEQAS assessor for a number of years.

Professor Dimitris Grammatopoulos

Professor in Molecular Medicine, Warwick Medical School and University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust

Dimitris completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Thessaloniki, Greece and Newcastle upon Tyne Medical School. Following clinical and academic research training at Bristol and Johns Hopkins, Baltimore USA, Dimitris joined the University of Warwick and Walsgrave Hospital in 1997 and set up his independent research group through a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowship . In parallel he completed his clinical training in Clinical Biochemistry and he became a Member of RCPath in 1999 and a Fellow in 2007.

He received his Wellcome Trust University Award at Warwick Medical School in 2003 and he was appointed as the Chair of Molecular Medicine in 2006. He is also clinically active as a Consultant in Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Diagnostics at the Coventry and Warwickshire Pathology Services where he set up the Molecular Diagnostics service in 2003. Dimitris has been investigating the homeostatic adaptation to stress and the role of neuroendocrine mechanisms, focusing on the role of placental hormones on feto-maternal interaction and implications of maternal disease on offspring development and susceptibility to disease. He is a Principal Investigator at the Institute of Precision Diagnostics and Translational Medicine, UHCW NHS Trust and he leads the Novel Biomarkers Theme, translating cutting edge methodologies such as proteomics, machine learning and AI in routine clinical diagnostics.

Dimitris is the Lead in Diagnostics, Global Health Priorities in Health, University of Warwick and also the Lead SRL of the Metabolic and Endocrine Disorders specialty Group, West Midlands NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN). He holds appointments in national committees, such as ACB Scientific Committee, RCPath Specialty Advisory Committee in Clinical Biochemistry and Interdisciplinary Committee in Genomics and Reproductive Medicine.

Dr Alison Green

Reader, Head of CSFf Diagnostics, University of Edinburgh

Dr Alison is a clinical biochemistry with a long-standing interest and expertise in the development, evaluation and implementation of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers for the diagnosis of dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases. She obtained a PhD on the "Use of CSF biomarkers in the diagnosis of dementia" from the University of London in 1999. Since 2000 she has been the head of the CSF diagnostics section of the National CJD Research & Surveillance Unit which runs a national and international diagnostic service for CSF 14-3-3 and RT-QuIC for the diagnosis of CJD.

Paula Griffiths

Immunology Section Manager, Swansea Bay University Health Board

After completing her training as a MLSO in Haematology and Blood Transfusion in the Whittington Hospital London in 1992, Paula became a Fellow of the IBMS in 1995. In the same year she moved to Singleton Hospital Swansea which is now part of Swansea Bay UHB. There, she was introduced to the Immunology department and trained in techniques such as Immunofluorescence and Flow Cytometry.

After leaving the profession in 2004 to retrain as a science teacher Paula returned to Swansea Bay UHB in 2013 where she retrained in Haematology, Blood Transfusion and Immunology and was appointed Immunology Section Manager four years ago.

Paula is also the All-Wales Immunology Standardisation lead and currently working towards a standardised configuration for the replacement All-Wales LIMS.

Shane Grimsley

Red Cell Reference Manager, Consultant Clinical Scientist Trainee , International Blood Group Reference Laboratory - NHSBT

Shane is the Laboratory Manager at the International Blood Group Reference Laboratory (IBGRL). It is a tertiary reference laboratory where approximately half of the referrals are received from outside the UK,  meaning that IBGRL resolve some of the world’s most complex immunohaematology cases.

The lab has identified many new blood groups, including recently, a number of new antigens within the Cartwright (YT), Lutheran (Lu), Indian (In) and Cromer (Cr) blood group systems. Shane finds working within this team and solving these puzzles a great challenge and extremely rewarding.

Major Jez Grindrod

Defence Specialist Adviser for Pathology, Centre of Defence Pathology

Major Grindrod is a registered Biomedical scientist in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He joined the Army in 1986 and trained in the military 'laboratory technician' becoming state registered in 1993.

Major Grindrod has worked as a multidiscipline Biomedical Scientist in numerous military and NHS laboratories (UK, Falkland Islands, Germany and Cyprus). He has also deployed on several operational commitments as a laboratory manager (Bosnia, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq) his final operational tour was to set up a laboratory to support the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.

Major Grindrod’s recent work has been as commanding MOD blood establishment including the Responsible Person Blood and running the military BMS training school. His final role (before retiring) is as the Defence Specialist Adviser for Pathology - leading the military BMS to ensure they are an operationally effective entity.

Daniel Guerendiain

Associate Clinical Scientist , Scottish Human Papillomavirus Reference Laboratory, NHS Lothian

Daniel Guerendiain is an associate clinical scientist at the Scottish Human Papillomavirus reference lab (SHPVRL). From his start in 2014, his main focus has been developing and evaluating molecular detection methods for HPV.

During his PhD at St Andrews University, he looked into the HPV positivity in different HPV-driven cancers in Scotland but mainly focused on anal lesions where he applied next generation sequencing (NGS) for HPV sub-lineage identification.

Currently, he is focused on implementing NGS for diagnostic purposes at the SHPVRL.

David Gurney DBMS FIBMS CSci

Operational Manager and Lead Scientist , Haemostasis Laboratory at University Hospitals Birmingham

No bio provided

Pegah Hafezi

AST lead, Senior Scientist, Severn Pathology, North Bristol NHS Trust

With her background in pharmacology, Pegah is interested in antibiotic activities and multi-drug resistance mechanisms . She leads AST and antimicrobial drug resistance (AMR) in bacteria at Bristol and is a member of Current BSAC AST Standing Committee .

Eva Halloran

Consultant Biomedical Scientist, Southmead Hospital, North Bristol NHS Trust

Eva is a Consultant Biomemedical Scientist in cervical cytology primarily based at Southmead Hospital, North Bristol NHS Trust. She is also the Cervical Screening Provider Lead (CSPL) for Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. She provides support to the London Regional SQAS team as a professional/clinical advisor.

Eva has worked in a number of cytology laboratories in England including London, Oxford and Reading.

Professor Sophie Hambleton

Professor of Paediatrics and Immunology, Newcastle University and Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Sophie is a clinician scientist who leads the Primary Immunodeficiency Group at Newcastle University and plays an active part in the paediatric immunology service at the Great North Children's Hospital. Her research concerns the molecular basis of novel inborn errors of the immune system, with a focus on susceptibility to intracellular pathogens and immune dysregulation. The group’s discoveries include the first examples of dendritic cell deficiency in humans, isolated viral susceptibility arising from defective type I interferon signalling and novel monogenic causes of complex autoimmunity in childhood.

Sophie has been an enthusiastic adopter of next generation sequencing and she leads the Genomics England Clinical Interpretation Partnership for Immune Disorders.

Gemma Harte

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Dr Heli Harvala LicMed, MSc, PhD, FRCPath

Consultant Medical Virologist / Principal Investigator, NHS Blood and Transplant, Colindale

Heli Harvala (LicMed, MSc, PhD, FRCPath, 77 publications, h-index 33) is Consultant Medical Virologist at NHS Blood and Transplant and Honorary Clinical Associate Professor in Virology at UCL. Her ongoing research activity spans from enteroviruses to clinical virology and transfusion medicine, including a special focus on molecular epidemiology.

Heli graduated in Medicine from the University of Turku, Finland in 2002, along with the Master’s degree in Organic Chemistry. She trained in Clinical Virology in Edinburgh and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2015 by exam. Subsequently, she completed the 2-year European Public Health Microbiology fellowship, organised by ECDC, in Public Health Agency of Sweden. Following that, she moved back to the UK and took her first Virology Consultant post at the University College of London Hospital in September 2016. She has been working at the NHS Blood and Transplant as a consultant Medical Virologist since the beginning of 2018 and was recently nominated as a Principal Investigator.

Her previous research has mostly focused on enterovirus (EV) and parechovirus (HPeV) infections, involving the establishment and performance testing of screening and typing methods in diagnostic laboratories across Europe. This work has also led to our understanding of the clinical significance of HPeV infections and identification of HPeV type 3 as a major cause of meningitis and sepsis-like illness in young children throughout the world. This work has been widely recognised internationally and Heli was awarded the ESCV prize lectureship in 2012. HPeV screening of CSF samples obtained from children is now recommended throughout the UK and typing methods for both EV and HPeV I developed have also been adopted worldwide. She has also evaluated European preparedness for enterovirus detection and characterisation, subsequently a large-scale study on enterovirus infections published in Lancet Infectious Diseases. This has provided Heli with comprehensive skills in leading large networks across different countries, knowledge of surveillance systems used in Europe, and people involved within these networks. Heli also initiated the establishment of European Non-Polio Enterovirus Network (ENPEN) under auspices of ESCV in 2016 and has been leading that since.

She leads on NHS Blood and Transplant investigations to transfusion transmitted infections in England and has been focusing more recently on blood safety related research. Her initial studies focused on universal hepatitis E screening and the effectiveness of current donation screening to identify occult HBV infection. She planned and led a project highlighting the lack of effectiveness of current blood donor screening strategy for occult HBV detection by performing residual risk calculations using South African and Australian models; this work formed a basis for a document submitted to SaBTO review in September 2019 and subsequent policy change. She has also been leading a collaborative project focussed on the use of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among blood donors and its potential to reduce the effectiveness of HIV screening. This work showed, for the first time in Europe, that blood donors have not disclosed their previous antiviral use in England. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, she has also been largely involved with SARS-CoV-2 research. She was a Clinical Lead for Convalescent Plasma Testing Group and been also involved with two Convalescent Plasma clinical trials established in England. She was innovating and developing the testing strategy for convalescent plasma since the first cases of SARS-CoV-2 were identified in China, collaborating closely with PHE, NIBSC and the University of Oxford. She has further developed this collaboration via the European Blood Alliances and is leading a project to harmonise neutralising antibody measurements in convalescent plasma in Europe and beyond.

Most of her work has been in the area of molecular virology, including next generation sequencing (NGS) and viral genomic investigations of enteroviruses, parechoviruses, measles, influenza viruses, SARS-CoV-2 and also C. difficile. As a member of Executive Team for European Society of Clinical Virology, she has also been involved in establishing European Network for NGS (ENNGS). She is also a member of the European Blood Alliance and International Blood Transfusion Study groups on Convalescent Plasma and Transfusion Transmitted Infections.

Jane Harwood

Clinical Scientist, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Jayne is the Lead Healthcare Scientist for Serology at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle. She is also currently completing the HSST programme in Virology and is therefore involved in the Clinical side of the laboratory work. She is a member of the IBMS Specialist Advisory Panel for Virology.

Dr Brendan Healy

Consultant in Microbiology and Infectious Diseases , Public Health Wales

Brendan is a Consultant in Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. He is National lead for the All Wales Hepatitis network and clinical lead for the Wales elimination programme. Successes of the program include BMJ Clinical Leadership Team of the Year 2020 and two UK firsts - elimination of hepatitis C from a remand prison and successful use of hepatitis C infected organs with subsequent eradication of the infection from the recipient. He is also Clinical and IP&C Lead for the microbiology service in Swansea, Principal Investigator on RECOVERY trial in Swansea and MEDICAGO (a COVID19 vaccine trial).

Brendan has a special interest in C. diff and runs the FMT service in Swansea. Other interests include orthopaedic infection and Q fever. Dr Healy trained at the University of Liverpool, UK, in 1998 achieving honours degree and an intercalated degree in Physiology. He was the Young Investigator Prize Winner at the Federation of Infection Societies conference in 2003. He also has an interest in working overseas and has worked in Lesotho (2009) and in Sierra Leone (2015, with Kings College).

Dr Adrian Heaps

Consultant Clinical Scientist, North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Trust

Dr Adrian is a consultant clinical scientist and clinical lead for immunology in North Cumbria and South Tees NHS Hospital Trusts. He trained in London and then Cardiff before taking his consultant post in North Cumbria.

Dr Adrian has a keen interest in autoimmune serology and has led on a number of projects to automate indirect immunofluorescence testing in clinical laboratories.

Natalie Hennessey

Senior Biomedical Scientist in Blood Transfusion, Doncaster & Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Natalie studied Applied Biomedical Sciences (BSc) at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, graduating in 2014, and she has been working at Doncaster & Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals for almost 8 years. She began working as a band 5 biomedical scientist at Doncaster Royal Infirmary in July 2014, where she completed her specialist portfolio in haematology and hospital transfusion practice and progressed to a band 6 specialist biomedical scientist.

In 2018, she successfully undertook the BBTS Specialist Certificate in Transfusion Science Practice, which enabled her to gain a senior biomedical scientist post in blood transfusion in 2019. She then went on to undertake the HSD in blood transfusion, which she successfully completed in Spring 2021.

Peter Heptinstall

North of England Pathology & Screening Education Centre (NEPSEC)

Peter is a consultant biomedical scientist in gynaecological cytology. He holds the IBMS Diploma of Expert Practice in Non-gynae cytology and has a masters degrees in pathological sciences and healthcare management.

Peter is the training centre manager and assistant director of North of England Pathology & Screening Education Centre (NEPSEC) and is a long time advocate of the value of CPD.

Tony Hitchcock

Technical Director , Cobra Biologics, A Charles River Company

Tony has over 35 years of experience in the large-scale manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. As a founding staff member of Cobra Tony has been responsible for the development of much of Cobra’s manufacturing technologies in the field of DNA and virus production. He has held a number of senior roles, managing both manufacturing and development functions within the company, working on over 40 programmes for the development of novel therapeutic products including protein, recombinant virus, bacteriophage and plasmid DNA products. His current role is based in the commercial group and support external collaboration and outreach activities.

Additionally, Tony is currently on the BIA Science and Innovation Advisory Committee (SIAC) and the industrial advisory boards for Aston and Loughborough Universities, and serves on the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council  (EPSRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Vinnova review panels. He was also named in the Medicine Makers 2019 Power list as one of the industries’ top influencers.   He has also served as a member of the BBSRC BSI (Biosciences for industry panel), the steering committee of the UK Bioprocess Research Industry Club (BRIC), the scientific advisory of the Pharmaceutical Centre for Excellence (COEBP) at the University of Manchester, the Executive Board of the European Federation of Biotechnology and the Industrial Advisory Board for the Astbury Centre at the University of Leeds.

Chantell Hodgson

Scheme Manager , UK NEQAS Cellular Pathology Technique

For the past 10 years Chantell has been the Scheme Manager for UK NEQAS CPT, leading a “not for profit” organisation which provides a comprehensive range of EQA and proficiency testing programmes for all aspects of tissue diagnostics. She has almost 30 years’ experience in cellular pathology and immunocytochemistry, both in a research and diagnostic setting Lead for UK NEQAS CPT educational provision to support in house training and development of Biomedical Scientists and supporting staff. 

Chantell is also the UK NEQAS Vice-President for Communications, Deputy Chair of the IBMS Cellular Pathology Advisory Committee, Guest Lecturer at a number of Universities for Biomedical Science Speaker at international meetings and conferences, as well as IBMS Registration and Specialist Portfolio Assessor Contributor to the Oxford University Press (OUP) Histopathology textbook series.

Professor Lesley Hoyles FRSB

Professor of Microbiome and Systems Biology, Nottingham Trent University

Lesley Hoyles is Professor of Microbiome and Systems Biology, and research lead for the Antimicrobial Resistance, Omics and Microbiota theme at Nottingham Trent Unversity. She combines microbiology and bioinformatics approaches in vitro and in vivo to understand how members of the gut microbiota function and influence human health and disease.

Using integrated systems-level approaches, Professor Hoyles has defined the contribution of the microbiome and its metabolites to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, metabolic retroconversion and integrity of the blood-brain barrier.

Rob Hughes

Scheme Organiser, UK NEQAS Cellular Pathology Technique

Rob has practiced as a Biomedical Scientist for over 30 years in both a teaching hospital and in general hospital environments. As a result of this he has developed a strong interest in quality and process improvement. 

Rob currently holds the position of Cellular Pathology Directorate Operational Manager for Path Links Pathology Services, where they have been implementing Whole Slide Imaging technology for over five years. He has supported UKNEQAS CPT in various capacities for over 20 years holding the position of Scheme Organiser since 2015.

Tahmina Hussain MSc CSci FIBMS

Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences, University of Salford

No bio provided

: @@TahminaHussain8

Dr Bethan Hussey

Research Manager, Wellcome Sanger Institute

No bio provided

Robert Impey

Senior Biomedical Scientist, Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust

Rob is a Senior BMS in the Department of Clinical Microbiology at the Queen Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth where he has worked since 2013. As part of his senior role Rob chairs the department's technical committee which seeks to ensure the department maintains up to date and high quality policies and procedures.

With a keen interest in the uses and applications of MALDI-TOF technology, Rob undertook a project investigating the rapid identification of bacteria from blood cultures as part of his MSc in Biomedical Science which he achieved with distinction in 2020. Rob has also investigated the use of MALDI-TOF technology for the identification of Mycobacteria, and follows developments in rapid antimicrobial susceptibility testing closely.

With a good understanding of the technology and applications, Rob has provided current and potential users with demonstrations of the Bruker Biotyper MALDI-TOF instrument, and participates regularly in user meetings. Away from work Rob enjoys sports and outdoor pursuits, and plays rugby for his local club.

Chris Irving

Biomedical Scientist , Cheltenham General Hospital

Chris is a Biomedical Scientist and Fellow of the IBMS based at Cheltenham General Hospital currently participating in the IBMS Histopathology Reporting Programme in Gastrointestinal Pathology. As part of the Gastrointestinal Team he also specialises in specimen dissection and is a Visiting Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Science at the University of Gloucestershire.

Chris has 18 years’ experience in Histopathology in the NHS over several Trusts and has a keen interest in training and research. He has coordinated Histopathology involvement in local and national clinical research projects and was an expert member of the Liverpool East Research Ethics Committee.

Professor Tim James

Head Biomedical Scientist, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Tim is laboratory manager and head biomedical scientist in Clinical Biochemistry at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, a post he has held for the last 20 years. Within this role he manages three laboratory sites including a large teaching hospital service. Working with clinical departments to better understand testing and to ensure optimal utilisation are key aims of the service. He has worked with many clinical teams to evaluate current testing and where possible introduce new testing and change where there are clear benefits for patients.

In 2018, Oxford introduced testing for angiogenic markers into routine practice following an outcome-based study of benefit – the INSPIRE study. He has on-going collaboration with the Oxford Obstetric team which has led to a series of publications encompassing diagnosis of pre-eclampsia, developing pregnancy specific reference intervals and identifying newer markers of obstetric disease.

Jackie Jamieson

Northern Health and Social Care Trust

Jackie is a Consultant Biomedical Scientist, a Clinical Lead and Trust Cervical Screening Lead. She is also the NICSP pathology QA Lead, Deputy Chief Examiner for the IBMS and, as a longstanding member of the IBMS, a member of the Cytopathology Specialist Advisory Panel.

Dr Anita Jayadev

Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust

Dr. Anita qualified from St. Bartholomew’s School of Medicine and Dentistry in London in 2005. She has been working as a respiratory consultant at Wexham Park Hospital for the last 4 years and has an interest in interventional respiratory medicine. She has a passion for innovation and has won several awards for her work in patient safety and service improvement.

Dr Anita has set up and leads the EBUS service at Wexham Park Hospital and established an EBUS MDT working closely with colleagues in pathology and biomedical scientists to continually improve the service. She will present some of her work done with her colleagues, looking at the role of the biomedical scientist in Rapid Onsite Evaluation for EBUS procedures.

Clare Jeffray

Principal Clinical Biochemist, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Clare began training in Clinical Biochemistry at City Hospital, Birmingham in 2003 and moved to The Newcastle-Upon-Tyne NHS Foundation Trust in 2005. She has three main areas of interest in Biochemistry of Cystic Fibrosis, HbA1c analysis and Maternal Serum Screening. She has been the Scientific lead for Maternal Serum Screening for the last 7 years.

Rhian John

Physician Associate, Kings Surgery, Port Talbot Resource Centre

Rhian started as medical laboratory assistant in Swansea NHS Trust, then had 5 years as a trainee Biomedical Scientist in Swansea Bay University Health Board (formerly ABMU) while completing her biomedical science BSc in University of Wales Institute, Cardiff (now Cardiff Met) one day a week. She then became a Specialist Biomedical Scientist and completed her biomedical science MSc distance learning at Nottingham.

Rhian worked in laboratories for 11yrs in total and then left to work with a STEM charity for a year before retraining at Swansea University medical school as a Physician Associate with MSc in Physician Associate studies. She undertook an internship year in Swansea Bay health board with 3 different GP practices, an acute GP unit at Singleton hospital and a sexual health and acute clinical team before joining the GP practice where she currently works.

Professor Elizabeth Johnson PhD, FECMM

Consultant Clinical Scientist in Medical Mycology, Director of the UK HSA Mycology Reference Laboratory, UK Health Security Agency

Professor Johnson has been head of the National Mycology Reference Laboratory (MRL), now under the auspisces of the new UK Health Security Agency, since 1999. The laboratory runs a comprehensive diagnostic and reference service for the management of fungal infection and also manages the National Collection of Pathogenic Fungi (NCPF), a unique biological resource. The research interests of the laboratory include: molecular and proteomic identification methods, molecular diagnostics, antifungal susceptibility profiles with established and novel antifungal agents, pathogenicity models, emerging pathogens and novel diagnostic methods.

Professor Johnson is the author of more than 180 research publications and co-author of two books.

Dr Sue Jones PFHEA, FIMBS, MRSB

Associate Head of School: Biosciences , York St. John University

Dr Sue Jones has been teaching in higher education since 2000 and has been a programme lead for IBMS accredited Biomedical Science programmes since 2009. Sue has worked at both the University of Bradford and York St John University, where she has established and developed the entirely new Biosciences subject area (since 2014).

Sue has a keen interest in supporting students, allowing them to achieve well academically, develop technical competency and enhance their employability. Sue won the national award of HE Bioscience Teacher of the Year in 2020 for increasing student retention, improving academic achievement and reducing awarding gaps for diverse learner communities. She was also awarded Principle Fellowship of Advance HE in 2021 for her strategic leadership that drives change, supports colleagues’ development, and delivers sustained student impact.

Sue is committed to authentic assessments and extensive laboratory experience for students on Biomedical Science programmes and has established effective reciprocal relationships with NHS laboratories in Yorkshire and the Humber over the past 15 years.

Suchita Joshi

Deputy Head of Pathology Transformation, NHS England & Improvement

Suchita is the current Deputy head of pathology transformation in England and has held several key post within the COVID-19 response.

Suchita is an accomplished, versatile, and quality-driven professional with a proven track record in driving service improvements and increasing efficiency across multiple platforms

Becky Kay

Senior Clinical Engineer, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust

Becky is a senior clinical engineer at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. As part of the early response to COVID-19 she was redeployed to the NHS Nightingale Hospital in London. The early part of this re-deployment involved rapidly collating an education curriculum and training programme for a group of clinical scientists, primarily with engineering or physiology backgrounds, to be redeployed into a clinical/technical support role in ICU.

This work lead Becky to a secondment with NHSE&I and HEE to a programme called the London Training and Learning Collaborative (LTLC). She was part of a multi-disciplinary team who were tasked with the goal of collating, curating and disseminating training for a wide range of healthcare staff to help prepare and support redeployment into critical care settings around London.

Dr Rashid Kazmi

Consultant Haematologist, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Rashid is a Consultant Haematologist and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at University of Southampton. He is the Director of Southampton Haemostasis and Thrombosis Cente with an overall clinical and administrative responsibility for bleeding and thrombotic disorder patients.

Dr Rashid has a busy research porfolio and is currently engaged in a number of clinical trials in Haemophilia, Immune Thrombocytopenia and autoimmune haemolytic anaemias exploring gene therapy, cell therapy and novel treatments.

Dr Tim Kendall

Senior Clinical Fellow in Pathology , Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

Dr Kendall is a Senior Clinical Research Fellow in Pathology at the University of Edinburgh and Consultant Liver Pathologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. His research interests are liver fibrogenesis and primary liver cancer but he also provides histopathological support for other preclinical, translational and clinical studies.

Dr Kendall is the pathology representative on committees of national liver organisations and promotes histopathological involvement in trials through work with CM-Path, the NCRI Hepatobiliary subgroup, and his role within the Lothian NRS Human Annotated Bioresource. He graduated from Southampton University and trained in pathology in Southampton and Edinburgh.

Jennie Kettlewell

Acting Senior Biomedical Scientist , York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Jennie is an Acting Senior Biomedical Scientist in Clinical Biochemistry, based at York and Scarborough hospitals. She has almost twenty years of laboratory experience since joining the NHS in 2003.

In 2019, she successfully completed the IBMS Higher Specialist Diploma in Clinical Chemistry, and sits on the IBMS Clinical Chemistry Specialist Advisory Panel.

Dr Steve Kitchen

Clinical Scientist, The Royal Hallamshire Hospital

No bio provided

Patrick Kumar

Consultant Healthcare Scientist, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust

Patrick is a Consultant Healthcare Scientist with extensive experience in histological specimen dissection. He obtained the Diploma of Expert Practice in Histological Dissection in 2007 and was the first Biomedical Scientist in the UK to obtain the Advanced Specialist Diploma in Breast Specimen Dissection in 2011.

Jenny Lake

Principal Clinical Biochemist, Barts Health NHS Trust

After graduating from the University of Newcastle and then the University of Leeds, Jenny started an STP training post at Southend University Hospital. On completion of training she secured a Senior Biochemist post at Barts Health NHS Trust in London specialising in point of care testing (POCT) and was later promoted to Principal Biochemist.

Having experience in POCT, Jenny was asked to establish POCT services at London's Nightingale Hospital which she did alongside colleagues from Barts Health and the wider London network.

Jenny has recently moved to Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Dr Jonathan Lambert

Biomedical Scientist, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Dr Katy Latham

Head of Cellular and Molecular Therapies, NHS Blood and Transplant, Filton

Dr Katy Latham started her career as a research and development scientist in the Biotech industry, later gaining her PhD in Transplantation Genetics at the University of Manchester, investigating the role of lipoproteins in predicting renal graft survival. She trained as a Clinical Scientist in Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics in the Transplantation Laboratory, Manchester before gaining the FRCPath and moving to the Anthony Nolan stem cell registry to head the H&I programme there.

In 2020, Dr Latham moved to NHSBT where she is the Head of Cellular and Molecular Therapies, based at Filton, overseeing the stem cell work supporting transplants in the South West. Her Lab includes the Advanced Therapies Unit who work with both the NHS and commercial sponsors to provide tech transfer and manufacturing under GMP for Advanced Therapeutic Medicinal Products.

Nicki Lawrence

Principal Biomedical Scientist Advanced Practitioner in Morphology, University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust

Nicki started out as a lab assistant in Blood Transfusion 31 years ago and has since worked as a multidisciplinary Biomedical Scientist in Haematology and Biochemistry, before becoming a Senior BMS in Morphology at her current Trust. She has a background in Health and Safety and has also worked as a Training Officer for over a decade.

Nicki became a Principal Biomedical Scientist Advanced Practitioner in Morphology in 2018. Her main interest is in haematological malignancy. She is a member of a number of expert panels including the International Federation of Biomedical Laboratory Science Haematology Advisory Group. Her current role ties together Clinical and Laboratory Haematology and she is also the autologous peripheral blood stem cell transplant programme quality manager for her Trust.

Claire Lawrie

Senior Programme Manager, NHS National Services Scotland

Claire Lawrie leads the Information Management Service, which supports National Services Division within NHS Scotland. Claire has led the service since its establishment in 2015 and her priorities have included developing an efficient and effective service which is responsive to the needs of clinicians and scientists.

She is passionate about ensuring that data is visualised. analysed and actively used to drive service improvement. Claire has been instrumental in developing in-house benchmarking for NHS Scotland's labs. The Demand Optimisation Atlas of Variation won the RCPath special award for innovation in 2020.

Prior to her role in networks, Claire spent ten years at NHS 24 working within their technology team, where she supported a number of key projects that developed service delivery. Claire also spent two years working with the eHealth team at Scottish Government, where she had opportunity to work directly with Boards to support improvement and implement national initiatives. 

Dr Alexander Lawson

Consultant Clinical Scientist & Forensic Toxicologist , University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

Alex is a Consultant Clinical Scientist and Forensic Toxicologist at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB). He is also the Clinical Service Lead for Biochemistry, Immunology and Toxicology at UHB. In 2013, Alex co-founded the Toxicology Laboratory at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital, part of UHB. This department offers a comprehensive analytical and interpretive service for the investigation of acute poisoning and health monitoring. In this role Alex developed a large number assays for drug screening and quantitation using a number of chromatographic techniques with and without mass spectrometry.

He also has extensive experience in the analysis of trace elements. Recent research has been focused on screening for drug adherence in chronic disease such as hypertension and on using high resolution mass spectrometry to identify novel psychoactive substances. Work is performed for both clinical and post mortem purposes.

Alex is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (FRCPath), a member of the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences (MCSFS), a member of the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and is on the UK Register of Toxicologists. He has a BSc. MSc and PhD from the University of Birmingham.

Dr Rajeka Lazarus

Consultant in microbiology and infectious diseases , University Hospital Bristol & Weston

Dr Rajeka is an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist, based in Bristol, UK and the co-director of the Bristol Vaccine Centre, leading on adult vaccine trials. She was awarded a doctorate in vaccinology from the University of Oxford, and trained in the Oxford Vaccine Group.

Over the past 18 months, Rajeka has been the Principal Investigator for 7 COVID-19 vaccine trials. She is the co-founder of the UK clinical vaccine network which aims to promote adult vaccine research, education and advocacy. Her clinical interests include mycobacterial infection, antimicrobial stewardship and critical care infection. Her research interests include clinical evaluation of vaccines, vaccine schedules, implementation and uptake.

Wendy Leversuch

Head of Learning & Development, Sonic Healthcare UK

Wendy is a Biomedical Scientist, initially specialising in Haematology & Blood Transfusion before moving into the field of education and training.

Wendy has worked as a training officer in the laboratory, as the Deputy Head of Education at the IBMS before moving to Sonic Healthcare UK which provides pathology services across 20 sites to both the NHS and private sector as the Head of Learning and Development.

Wendy’s current area of interest is in how the use of e-learning can be used to support laboratory training. A recent example was the successful use of instructional videos as part of a training program for staff recruited to work in the new Covid-19 surge lab.

: @leversuch

Tom Lewis

NHS England & Improvement

No bio provided

Professor Giuseppe Lippi

Full Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology , University Hospital of Verona (Italy) and President of the School of Medicine of Verona University

Giuseppe currently serves as Full Professor of Clinical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Verona (Italy), Director Laboratory Service of the University Hospital of Verona (Italy) and President of the School of Medicine of Verona University. He has published over 1900 articles in peer-reviewed journals, his total Impact Factor is over 8000 and the Hirsch Index (H-index) is 113. He has participated to more than 600 national and international congresses and has given more over 300 lectures to national and international meetings.

In 2017 Giuseppe was appointed as Secretary of the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) and he currently chairs the Task Force on COVID-19 of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC). He has been awarded with the 2014 Management Sciences and Patient Safety Division Award of the American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) for outstanding contributions in the field of patient safety in the clinical laboratory/healthcare industry, and with the 2015 Outstanding Speaker Award by the AACC. He has also received research grants from the European Community and from Regional Heath Care Services.

Giuseppe is Editor in Chief of “Annals of Translational Medicine” and “Journal of Laboratory and Precision Medicine” and also serves as Associate Editor of the journals “Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine”, “Seminars in Thrombosis and Haemostasis” and “Diagnosis”, is National Representative of the Italian Society of Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine (SIBioC) and member of the European Federation of Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) Working Group on Preanalytical Variability (WG-PRE). The main fields of research include COVID-19, analytical and clinical validation of phenotypic and molecular biomarkers, diagnostics of thrombotic and hemorrhagic disorders and relevant assay methods, pre-analytical variability.

Dr Suzy Lishman CBE

Consultant Histopathologist and Lead Medical Examiner, North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Dr Craig Livie

Principal Clinical Scientist , NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde

Dr Livie commenced his Clinical Scientist training in 2015 after completing a PhD in Biochemistry. He has been a Clinical Scientist at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Scotland for 4 years and has a specialist interest in tandem mass spectrometry with particular emphasis in neuroendrine neoplasms.

Stuart Long

Clinical Scientist, Andrology Service Lead, Deputy Quality Lead , Department of Cellular Pathology, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

Stuart currently leads a UKAS accredited diagnostic andrology service and also undertakes patient management for infertility and sexual dysfunction patients under Urology. He has an extensive career starting in Cytopathology and developing into Andrology.

Stuart is currently studying with the Institute of Psychosexual Medicine. He believes in a patient focussed service and that healthcare scientists can be key in patient care. His previous experience includes undertaking ISO15189:2012 assessments on behalf of UKAS, leading a fertility centre and speaking at numerous events nationally and internationally to promote andrology.

Catherine Lorenzen

Chief Biomedical Scientist - Transfusion, East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Dr Mairiead MacLennan

Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy

Dr Mairiead is a multidisciplinary Biomedical Scientist qualifying originally in histopathology and cytology now specialising in Microbiology. She has over 40 years’ experience in laboratory medicine, with 23 years of that spent working in veterinary medicine. Her specialisms are education/training and quality management.

Mairiead is Chair of the IBMS Scotland Training Forum and also Vice Chair of the IBMS Scottish Quality Management Discussion Group. She is also a Technical Assessor for UKAS. Her passion is people development and has incorporated resilience training as part of her departmental approach to people management.

In her first role in veterinary medicine she was one of a team of 8 staff manning the veterinary laboratory in what is described on Highland Vet on the TV as the far northern outpost town of Thurso. Truly a department with a limited scope.

Victoria Maddox

Senior Clinical Scientist, Microbiology Services Laboratory (Virology), NHS Blood & Transplant

Victoria started her career as a summer student in the Edinburgh Cystic Fibrosis Microbiology Laboratory, and went on to do her Clinical Scientist Training at the Royal Free Hospital in London. This was followed by gaining her FRCPath Part 1 and her HCPC registration at Leeds General Infirmary Microbiology Dept, and returning to London to work again the Royal Free and later for NHSBT in the Microbiology Services Laboratory (MSL).

Victoria is currently undertaking the HSST alongside her role as a Senior Clinical Scientist in MSL.

Karen Madgwick

Deputy Clinical Lead- Blood Transfusion, North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust

Karen has in her 43rd year of working within blood transfusion services. A biomedical scientist by background, she trained initially within NHS Blood and Transplant, moving into hospital transfusion in the late 80's early 90's and then to North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust some 20 years ago. A specialist trust in care of patients with inherited red cell disorders which sparked a desire for Karen to move out of the laboratory into a more clinical role.

Martin Maley

Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences, University of Sunderland

Martin is senior lecturer in biomedical science in the Bioscience team at University of Sunderland, specialising in Haematology and Transfusion. He has previously worked for NHSBT, and NBS before it, for over 30 years, the last 25 of which was spent in the Red Cell Immunohaematology Laboratory.

Martin has a keen interest in mentoring, and overseeing placement students and of course lecturing and teaching the newer / younger potential biomedical scientists of the future.

Jemma Mangan-Casbon

Lecturer in Biomedical Science , Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

Jemma has been a Biomedical Scientist for 16 years in Microbiology, seven of those as a manager and training officer. She trained at West Suffolk Hospital in 2005 and joined Nottingham as a Specialist Biomedical Scientist in 2009.

Jemma's passion has always been in training and education, so she has recently taken all the vast experience gained from the NHS and moved over to Nottingham Trent University as a Lecturer in Biomedical Science to further develop the future of the profession.

Dr Rachel Marrington

Consultant EQA Scientist & Deputy Director, Birmingham Quality (UK NEQAS)

Dr Rachel is a Consultant Clinical Scientist and the Deputy Director of Birmingham Quality (UK NEQAS). Birmingham Quality is a department at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. Prior to working at Birmingham Quality she worked for 12 years as a Clinical Biochemist at Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust (now part of University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust) working my way up to a Principal Clinical Scientist and gaining a lot of experience about the routine running of a laboratory! She gained her FRCPath in 2010.

Dr Rachel is the UK NEQAS Scheme Organiser for a number of EQA Schemes including the UK NEQAS for Serum Indices, UK NEQAS for Vitamin D and UK NEQAS for Antibiotics to name a few. Her main areas of interest lie with Pre- and Post-Analytical Quality, where she is on the EFLM HIL Task & Finish Group and the EFLM Working Group Post Analytical. She is also a member of the Board of Trustees for UK NEQAS and for EQALM, which is the European Association of EQA providers in Laboratory Medicine.

Neil Marsden

Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

No bio provided

Lorraine Marshall

Senior Anatomical Pathology Technologist , NHS Lothian

Loraiine is a senior anatomical pathology technologist and has been working for the NHS for almost 25 years. Her experience is in forensic adult and paediatric postmortems, hospital adult and paediatric postmortems and research postmortems including high risk. She has been mentoring junior members of staff in the mortuary and assisted in training of junior pathologists with a primary focus on paediatric postmortems. 

Lorraine became aware of the issues surrounding paediatric forensic postmortems and carried out a study with consultant paediatric pathologist Dr Meg Evans on the use and awareness of the SUDI toolkit. She was invited to present her poster on the findings of her study at the International Conference on Stillbirth, SIDS and Baby Survival in 2018. From 2017 to 2019 she sat on the Scottish Government Bereavement Sub Group (Paediatrics).

Dr Cara Martin

Assistant Professor in Molecular Pathology, Tumour Biology and Cancer Screening, Molecular Pathology Research Group, The School of Medicine, Trinity College Dublin

Dr Cara is an Assistant Professor in Molecular Pathology and Tumour Biology at the Department of Histopathology, Trinity College Dublin. She obtained the FRCPath in 2021, a PhD in Molecular Pathology from Trinity College in 2004, an MSc in Biotechnology from National University of Ireland, Galway in 1998. She leads the HPV Research Group based in Trinity College Dublin and the Coombe Women and Infant’s University Hospital.

Dr Cara's research programme consists of translational health services based research and basic research approaches in cancer screening, female gynaecological cancers, head and neck cancers and other HPV associated cancers. She is co-founder, lead investigator and programme manager of CERVIVA, The Irish Cervical Screening Research Consortium (www.cerviva.ie), which is a health services based research program. She has also led on introduction and implementation of molecular diagnostic testing into the Coombe Women and Infants University Hospital and the new National Cervical Screening Laboratory. She is a member of the HSE COVID-19 Laboratory Taskforce and was the lead scientist on the HSE COVID-19 Antigen Test Validation Project.

To date, Dr Cara has published 110 peer reviewed publication and has filed 2 patents. Her-h index is 34 and she has >5567citations.

Professor Jo Martin

NHS England and NHS Improvement

Professor Jo qualified at Cambridge University and London Hospital Medical College. She has a University of London PhD and Masters in Leadership and has had over 130 papers published, including Nature group and Science journals. She is Deputy Vice Principal (Health) and Professor of Pathology at Queen Mary University London and her clinical specialist expertise is in the pathology of gastrointestinal motility disorders.

Professor Jo is an award winning eCPD app designer and co-founder of Biomoti, a drug delivery development company. She developed and leads an innovative multi-million pound adaptive learning programme for RCPath and Health Education England.

She served as a director on the Board of Barts Health NHS Trust for 5 years. She has very broad experience in healthcare management including responsibility for local and regional research and for the training and education of over 17,500 staff.

National Clinical Director of Pathology for NHS England April 2013-16, Professor Jo was President of the Royal College of Pathologists from November 2017-2020, and is now National Specialty Advisor for Pathology for NHS England and Improvement, chairing the national Pathology Board and the national Pathology Workforce Board. She has led the profession during the pandemic and ensuing incidents related to global and national pressures.

She works with international charities, including as Chair of the Research Advisory Board of the Motor Neuron Disease Association, with which she has a long association, and works with local charities, including as a volunteer vaccinator since the beginning of the COVID-19 vaccine programme.

Samantha Maslin

Advanced Biomedical Scientist, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust

Samantha started her career in 2013 as a biomedical scientist at the Royal Derby Hospital where she worked in automated clinical biochemistry before moving to Sheffield Teaching Hospitals where she became a Specialist Biomedical Scientist. It was during the completion of the Specialist Portfolio where Samantha had to complete a rotation into Special Chemistry where her interest for Special Chemistry began.

After completion of the Specialist Portfolio Samantha undertook her MSC in Biomedical Science at Nottingham Trent University choosing the biochemistry route. It was during the MSC research project that Samantha became particularly passionate about Toxicology. Samantha then joined the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust in February 2020 where she is one of the senior scientists responsible for clinical and coronial toxicology.

Sarah May

Deputy Chief Executive, Institute of Biomedical Science

No bio provided

Shauna McAuley

Belfast Health and Social Care Trust

Shauna has been a Biomedical Scientist for over 20 years and is currently the Cellular Pathology Service Manager for the Belfast Health & Social Care Trust Laboratories, incorporating cytopathology, histology and mortuary services. She is the Irish IBMS Council Member Representative and eTutors on the Certificate of Expert Practice for Quality Management. Quality Management, regulatory inspections and accreditation visits can sometimes feel like they are a paper exercise, an endless list of documents and processes taking us away from ‘the bench’.

Dr Angus McGregor

Consultant Histopathologist, Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust

Dr Angus is a consultant histopathologist working in Shrewsbury. He trained in Edinburgh and previously worked for 16 years as a consultant in Leicester. He was fortunate to be part of a team who implemented a CT service to supplement the routine post mortem service in Leicester. His other interests are in clinical leadership and postgraduate medical and scientific training.

Lisa McKain

Transfusion Practitioner, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust

Lisa has a wealth of experience within NHS laboratories having started at Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham as a trainee Biomedical Scientist and progressing later to a senior role in Transfusion. A role which she thoroughly enjoyed especially as she had the responsibility for training.

During this time she became involved in the development of several hospital based educational and teaching activities which encouraged staff to actively learn by working through clinical scenarios to help them make decisions which in turn helped them develop and build confidence. It was during her lab teaching role she was given the opportunity to develop the Transfusion Science module of the Biomedical Sciences degree at Aston university, this was a very rewarding experience as it led her to participate in educational research into the practical elements of the Biomedical Sciences degree, her work was later published in the IBMS journal.

Lisa currently works as a Transfusion Practitioner (TP) and is the Site Lead Transfusion Practitioner for Solihull and Queen Elizabeth hospitals part of the University hospitals, Birmingham. The TP role is a dynamic link between the laboratory and clinical teams. Clinical experience has allowed her to appreciate patient care from a completely different perspective, and education is fundamental in highlighting the entire transfusion process and all the staff involved, especially those involved to prevent risks and to ensure emergency blood product availability.

Her role involves disseminating knowledge and expertise via Trust wide education, training and advice to all involved in the transfusion process to ensure the effective, safe and efficient use of blood and blood components whilst actively minimising wastage.

Dr John Mee

Clinical Scientist/Laboratory Manager, Viapath Analytics - An NHS partnership with SYNLAB

John is the manager of the Immunodermatology Laboratory at Viapath Analytics, based in St John’s Institute of Dermatology at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, where he has worked since 2009. He moved from a research career studying the immunology of inflammatory skin diseases at Sheffield University, UCL, Imperial College and King’s College London to train as a Clinical Scientist at St Thomas’ Hospital.

John is also national coordinator for UK NEQAS CPT’s direct immunofluorescence scheme.

Sue Mehew

Consultant Healthcare Scientist, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

Sue is a Consultant Biomedical and Clinical Scientist in Cytology plus Director of the Scottish Cytology Training School. She recently passed the stage C examination of the Advanced Specialist Diploma in Histopathology Reporting in Gynaecological pathology. She is primarily based at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, although since the rollout of Primary HPV screening she now works across the Lothians, Lanarkshire and Glasgow where the Training Centre is now based.

Sue only moved to Scotland in 2004 after she had passed the Advanced Specialist Diploma in cervical cytology, prior to that working in laboratories in Derby, Burton upon Trent, Nottingham and Sutton Coldfield. She has a keen interest in training and the psychology of cytology. She is also honorary secretary of the British Association for Cytopathology (BAC) and would be happy to speak to anybody later about the benefits of joining the BAC.

Jane Mills

NHS England & Improvement

No bio provided

Bhavin Mistry

Higher Specialist Biomedical Scientist, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

A graduate from the first cohort of the 4-year IBMS-accredited undergraduate masters degree programme at the University of Hull, Bhavin joined the Clinical Microbiology department at Nottingham University Hospitals in 2009 as a band 5 Biomedical Scientist. After successfully completing the Specialist diploma in Medical Microbiology, Bhavin moved into a Specialist Biomedical Scientist role in 2012 and then went on to complete the IBMS accredited MSc in Biomedical Sciences at Nottingham Trent University in 2014. Bhavin has been working as a Higher Specialist Biomedical Scientist since 2016.

In addition to his core role Bhavin, has been a training officer for the department since 2015 with key responsibility for Certificate of Competence & Certificate of Achievement trainees and is currently the project lead for the implementation of a new LIMS system, which is a joint venture between Nottingham University Hospitals and Sherwood Forest Hospitals.

Dr Philip Monaghan FRCPath

Consultant Clinical Scientist, Clinical Operations Head of Service, Clinical Director of Pathology, The Christie Pathology Partnership

After graduating from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in Biochemistry with Applied Molecular Biology, Phillip went on to complete his PhD in Molecular Enzymology at the University of Leicester. He subsequently commenced training in Clinical Biochemistry at Wirral University Teaching Hospital, Alder Hey Hospital and University Hospital of South Manchester.

Phillip has been a Clinical Scientist at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust and more recently The Christie Pathology Partnership in Manchester, UK, for the past 12 years, obtaining Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists (FRCPath) in 2014. Phillip is a state registered Clinical Scientist with the Health and Care Professions Council (UK) and a European Specialist in Laboratory Medicine (EuSpLM). Phillip is Honorary Lecturer at the University of Manchester, Cancer Sciences Division within the School of Medical Sciences, and regularly teach on the MSc Clinical Sciences programme and the Advanced Therapeutics Medicinal Products programme. Phillip is a member of the UK NEQAS Steering Committee for Immunochemistry, Chair of the NQAAP for Chemical Pathology and is also Deputy Editor for the Annals of Clinical Biochemistry journal. Phillip is a Consultant Expert member of the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (EFLM) Working Group for Test Evaluation (WG-TE). Special research interests include evidence-based laboratory medicine (test evaluation), biochemical endocrinology, and translational biomarker development.

Phillip is Co-Investigator on the VALTIVE clinical trials programme for the validation of a novel vascular response biomarker to guide VEGFi therapy in ovarian cancer. Phillip was awarded the Silver Research Medal from the Royal College of Pathologists in 2012 for his work on serum cortisol measurement in Cushing’s disease.

Daniel Monteiro

Principal Biomedical Scientist/Operations Manager, Haematology, Viapath - Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital

Daniel is the Principal Biomedical Scientist in the Special Haematology, Red cell Laboratory, at Viapath, Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital London. His main interest and expertise is in screening and diagnosis of haemoglobinopathies.  His experience encompasses both protein and DNA based techniques.

Daniel has completed his initial training in Portugal before moving to London where he completed his MSc in Biomedical Sciences at University of Westminster.

Besides actively participating in several projects involving haemoglobinopathies and haemoglobin studies he is involved in the training of all levels of scientific and medical staff as the Training Lead for Special Haematology department.

In addition to his laboratory role, Daniel also lectured at the NHS Sickle Cell & Thalassaemia Screening Programme training days, Annual Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia Conference and on the South Thames Sickle Cell & Thalassaemia Network.

Professor Gary Moore

Director of Clinical Diagnostic Research, Technoclone

Professor Moore trained and qualified in diagnostic haematology at the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street, London, with subsequent tenures at the Royal London and St. Bartholomew’s Hospitals before taking charge of the diagnostic haemostasis & thrombosis laboratories at Guy’s & St. Thomas’ Hospitals for 22 years.

He is now Director of Clinical Diagnostic Research for Technoclone, Honorary Consultant Biomedical Scientist for the Specialist Haemostasis Unit at Addenbrooke's Hospital, and Visiting Professor at Middlesex University London. Professor Moore’s main areas of scientific interest and research are antiphospholipid antibody detection, thrombophilia testing, and diagnostic applications of snake venoms.

He has published over 70 papers on laboratory haemostasis/thrombosis diagnostics, which includes guidelines and reviews, published two text books, and is a regular peer reviewer for several journals. The ‘Haematology’ textbook he co-authored is widely used as a course text for undergraduate and postgraduate biomedical science courses throughout the UK and the 2nd edition won the Royal Society of Biology best undergraduate textbook award in 2016.

Professor Moore is a regular presenter at national and international meetings, and has been consultant or advisory board member for various diagnostic and pharmaceutical companies. He is a member of the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis and co-chair of their Scientific & Standardisation Committee sub-committee on plasma coagulation inhibitors.

Professor Stephen Morley

Consultant Chemical Pathologist, University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust

No bio provided

Jemma Morris

Senior Biomedical Scientist, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust

Jemma started her career as an associate practitioner in 2008 at Calderdale Royal, and has worked up to a senior biomedical scientist at Calderdale Royal hospital in 2020. She was the Company Members Prize winner 2019 for the Higher Specialist Diploma in Cellular pathology while also completing the Diploma of Expert Practice portfolio in dissection in 2021.

Trefor Morris

Public Health Wales

No bio provided

Victoria Moyse

HCA Healthcare

Vikki is currently Training and Organisational Development Manager for HCA Healthcare UK Laboratories.

She has experience of managing laboratories and laboratory training in a variety of service settings, ISO 15189 compliance with regard to training and competence, and successfully implementing programs to support professional qualifications for laboratory staff.

Vikki is involved in delivering university-led training courses on how to successfully complete and support IBMS portfolios, and training for laboratory training officers.

She is passionate about laboratory management and training in biomedical science, and has recently undertaken a research project looking at post-registration training for biomedical scientists across the UK.

James Murphy

Immunoassay Automation Section Manager, Swansea Bay University Health Board

James started as a support worker after finishing his degree in Liverpool John Moores University in 2003. After gaining his professional registration, he has since advanced to Immunoassay Section Manager, having responsibility for 6 analytical lines across 4 hospital sites in the SBU network.

James has recently gained an MSc in Biomedical Science after undertaking a project investigating the extent of Biotin interference in Roche assays and the relation with analytical and biological variation.

Dr Martin Myers

Consultant Biochemist , Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Martin Myers is a Consultant Healthcare Scientist in Clinical Biochemistry at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Laboratory Director for Clinical Biochemistry. Dr Myers is also the Lead Scientist for the Trust and Chairs the Trust Point of Care Committee. Whilst at Preston Dr Myers has undertaken a continuous program of pathology redesign, improving the clinical and operational effectiveness and productivity of pathology. During this time he was the Associate Divisional Medical Director of Pathology for 4 years and Clinical Director of Pathology for 14 years.

Dr Myers is currently the Senior Clinical Advisor for the NHS Pathology Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) Programme, which has undertaken a 3 year evidenced-based review of Pathology services in England in order to improve quality and reduce unwarranted variation. The National report was launched in 2022 and the GIRFT Clinical Team is now working on implementing the recommendations. Dr Myers is also the RCPath Representative on the MHRA Device Expert Advisory Committee (DEAC) and Chair of the MHRA IVD Expert Advisory Group.

His interests include the use of automation, point of care testing and informatics in improving the quality of the diagnostic process, and redesigning a pathology delivery that is patient-focussed. He introduced the “Laboratory Anywhere” concept to ensure that diagnostics are delivered in a variety of locations both inside and outside the hospital ensuring that diagnostics are embedded in the patient pathway, rather than remote from the patient.

As part of the COVID-19 response, Dr Myers sat on several regional and national groups for SARS-CoV-2 testing and advised NHS Supplies on gas analyser placement in the Acute and Nightingale sectors. He introduced many laboratory based tests to improve diagnostic support for patients with COVID-19 as well as 24/7 Rapid SARS-CoV-2 testing for patient being admitted and, as part of the recovery pathway, for different patient pathways such as Endoscopy, Day of Surgery etc. This model has now been expanded for Rapid multiplex GI and respiratory pathogens. He is currently working on rapid Lab in a Bag diagnostics as part of the mobile SDEC service.

Using the Laboratory Anywhere concept and the use of Lab in a Box Diagnostics, Dr Myers has taken diagnostics directly to the BAME communities and vulnerable groups in the community. He is a Trustee of the National Forum for Health and Wellbeing charity where his “Blood Drop” team of Healthcare Scientists set up pop-up diagnostic clinics in the community as part of a “Health Mela”.

Major General (Retired) Paul Nanson CB CBE

Director, Paul Nanson Associates Ltd

Paul was born in Ormskirk, Lancashire and educated at Merchant Taylors’ School Crosby, Runshaw Tertiary College and The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.

He served 34 years with the British Army during which time he held a number of leadership roles in a variety of capacities and in nearly every continent. He has led on operations in Northern Ireland, the Gulf War, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. His last post in the Army was as Commandant Sandhurst, Director Leadership (Army), and Head of the Army’s Recruiting and Initial Training Command.

Paul retired from the Army in 2020 and now has his own leadership business, consulting, advising, coaching and speaking. He is the author of ‘Stand Up Straight – Ten Life Lessons from The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.’

Dr Shruthi Narayan

Medical Director, SHOT and Consultant Donor Medicine, NHSBT

Dr Shruthi, a haematologist by background, is the Medical Director of Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT) the independent, professionally led haemovigilance scheme covering the whole of UK. Additionally, she has a role as a Donor Consultant at NHS Blood and Transplant and chairs the Royal College of Pathologists Transfusion Specialty Advisory Committee.

Dr Shruthi graduated from Bangalore Medical College in India and trained as a paediatrician at the esteemed Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research. She then completed her haematology specialty training at Manchester, UK and also holds a Master’s degree in Leadership and Service Improvement. She is passionate about promoting transfusion safety, is actively involved in education as well as initiating and sustaining improvements in healthcare.

Dr Jane Needham

Consultant Biomedical Scientist, IBMS Council Member, Haemophilia Haemostasis and Thrombosis Centre – Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Jane has specialised in the field of haemostasis and thrombosis for more years than she cares to mention. During that time she has developed a role that has always had a strong scientific and clinical focus, including over the last 15 years having her own clinic for seeing patients suspected of having a mild bleeding disorder.

Jane is also passionate about development, recognition and utilisation of biomedical scientists scientific and clinical skills in all aspects of patient care.

Dr Aaron Niblock MB Bch BAO MRCP FRCPath MSC

Consultant in Haematology, Northern Health and Social Care Trust

Dr Aaron trained at Queens University Medical School, Belfast and graduated in 2008. After achieving MRCP in 2012 he studied haematology gaining FRCPath in 2017. He attained an MSC with distinction on Cancer and Molecular pathology and Genomics at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry in 2021. Dr Niblock currently works as a Consultant Haematologist in Antrim Hospital and is a visiting lecturer in the University of Ulster medical school.

Dr Niblock is the current NICaN chair of the Teenage and Young Adult CRG. His main publications and interests include diagnostic laboratory research methods.

Glenn Noel-Storr

Cellular Pathology Services Manager, Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, Chelsea

Glenn is Cellular Pathology Services Manager at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. He has been in post since 2008 but has worked for the Trust since 1985. With a long-standing interest in continuing profession development, he enrolled on the pilots of both the Quality Management and Advanced Quality management MSc modules at Greenwich University.

More recently, Glenn has been asked to advise the University of West London on the content for their Cellular Pathology BSC module. He believes that as pathology becomes more commercial, staff should be encouraged to take up formal training in both leadership and management. This will assist in ensuring that full advantage of opportunities which may arise are taken.

Glenn's personal interests include travelling both home and abroad, spending quality time with family and friends and reading when time allows.

Elisabeth North

Quality Manager, Bristol Infection Sciences Laboratory, Severn Pathology, UKHSA/North Bristol NHS Trust

Elisabeth originally started as a trainee MLSO in Virology at the Public Health Laboratory services in August 1996, qualified as a MLSO grade 1 in 1998 (morphed into a BMS at some point when the profession changed the role title) and worked in the routine Virology laboratory until she transferred to quality management full time in 2011.

Since then, Elisabeth has overseen the quality management system at the Bristol laboratory through the ISO15190:2012 transition and the laboratory move to the combined Infection Sciences services of Severn Pathology and subsequent accreditation of both legal entities.

Matt O’Dwyer

University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Dr Anca Oniscu

Consultant Pathologist, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh

Anca is a consultant pathologist in the pathology department at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. She is the clinical lead of the molecular pathology service in Edinburgh and also the clinical lead of the Scottish Molecular Pathology Consortium.

Apart from the interest in molecular pathology, Anca is also a gynaecological and soft tissue and bone pathologist.

Dr Guy Orchard

Head of Laboratory, Viapath Analytics - An NHS partnership with SYNLAB

Guy is responsible for providing and developing the dermatopathology, Mohs’ micrographic surgery and trichogram diagnostic services for the Unit. Guy is actively involved in teaching and training both within the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Trust framework but also as an external lecturer at several Universities throughout the country for students studying  for MSc’s  in biomedical science.

Guy completed his Fellowship to the IBMS in Cellular Pathology in 1990 having gained the highest pass in the UK across all disciplines and being awarded the RJ Lavington Prize. Guy completed his Master’s in immunology at Surrey University gaining a distinction in 1995 and achieved he’s PhD in 2010. He has worked at St. John’s for nearly his entire working career, which now spans over 35 years service.

Guy received chartered scientist recognition in 2005. He has won two international awards from the National Society of Histotechnologists (NSH), the first in 2015 The Leica Leadership Award for Teaching and Education and another in 2019 The Leica Leadership Award in Management and Training. In addition, Guy is the Advancing Health Care awards winner of the IBMS sponsored Biomedical Scientist of the Year 2020.

Guy has been responsible for expanding and developing the dermatopathology and Mohs’ laboratory services. The Mohs services within St. John’s, is now the largest within the UK and Guy has a keen interest in the development of Mohs techniques not only within St. John’s but also throughout the UK.  He has been involved in research and development activities for the department in several areas of pathology involving immunocytochemistry techniques. 

Guy has recently been involved in expanding and fully automating the immunocytochemistry service and has encompassed double-labelling and in-situ procedures for the department as new protocols. He has an active interest in lymphoma and melanoma research and participates in assisting researchers or publishing his own contributions in the field.

Guy is professionally active and is the deputy editor of The British Journal of Biomedical Sciences and sits on four other editorial boards as well as peer reviewing for several other journals. He is an immunocytochemistry UK National external quality assurance (UKNEQAS) assessor, lecturer and short course coordinator.  He is also a UKNEQAS Cellular Pathology Technique (CPT) lead assessor for Mohs. He has previously held a council position for the IBMS and is now the IBMS Chief Examiner for the cellular pathology specialist panel. Guy sits on the advanced Specialist examination con-joint boards for the IBMS and Royal College of Pathologists for histodissection, immunocytochemistry and Biomedical Scientists reporting.

Guy is the appointed Lead for the British Society of Mohs Histologists and chairman for the newly formed advanced specialist examination board for the IBMS in Mohs. Guy has also been a Director for the American Society of Mohs Histotechnologists (ASMH). He regularly teaches on the MSc dermatology course for King’s Medical School London and Westminster University. Guy has edited and contributed to Oxford University Press (OUP) ‘Histopathology’ text book for  the Fundamentals in Biomedical Science series and has just completed  a second book ‘ Cellular Structure and Function’  and is now working on a third book in the same series for OUP entitled Cellular Pathology. He has also contributed a chapter on ‘Pigments’ to Survana and Layton’s ‘Bancrofts Theory and Practice of Histological Techniques’ seventh and eighth editions.

Hasit Patel

Consultant Biomedical Scientist, Cervical Screening London, Health Service Laboratories

Hasit has 34 year experience working within cytopathology. He has managed cytopathology laboratories at The Whittington Hospital, Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals and Barts Health. He is currently working as a Consultant Biomedical Scientist at Cervical Screening London.

Dipti Patel

Infection & Immunity Lead Multi-Disciplinary Automated Laboratory , North West London Pathology

After acquiring Masters in Microbiology, Dipti started her career as a Junior Scientific officer in Microbiology/serology in a renowned hospital in India, she then moved to undergraduate teaching in Microbiology.

Dipti moved to UK 25 years ago and starting as a technician in Immunology before she worked up to a Senior Biomedical Scientist at Charing Cross Hospital in 2004. Currently, she is working as Infection & Immunity manager in a Multi-disciplinary lab at Charing cross Hospital (North West London Pathology)

Dina Patel

Scientific Director, UK NEQAS Immunology, Sheffield

Dina has worked within UK NEQAS for nearly 30 years. Previously as a Biomedical Scientist within Immunology Departments in London & Sheffield and Lead Evaluation Manager for MHRA Kit Evaluation Unit. This involved the evaluation of diagnostic assays mainly within the field of Immunology & Immunochemistry and the publication of ‘blue cover reports’ which were utilised by many NHS laboratories to identify and compare performance of assays.

Her key roles include representing the UK NEQAS IIA Centre in an advisory and educational role on a national and international basis, providing interpretative advice to UK NEQAS participants on all aspects of assay performance, trouble-shooting, evaluation and quality assurance, and leading on scientific / technical research and service development within the specific EQA Discipline.

Dr Charlotte Pawlyn

Clinical Scientist/Haematology Consultant, The Institute of Cancer Research

Charlotte is a CRUK Clinician Scientist and Team Leader at The Institute of Cancer Research and an Honorary Consultant Haematologist at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London, UK. She received her degrees in Pharmacology and Medicine from St John’s College, Cambridge University, UK.

In 2016, Charlotte completed a Wellcome Trust funded PhD Fellowship, undertaking laboratory research to identify novel epigenetic targets for myeloma therapy. Her current laboratory research focusses on identifying therapeutic targets to improve outcomes for patients with immunomodulatory drug resistant and high-risk myeloma.

In addition to her laboratory studies, Charlotte is actively involved in the Trial Management Groups of several clinical trials as part of the UK Myeloma Research Alliance including the large national frontline studies, Myeloma XI and Myeloma XIV.

Daniel Payne

Consultant Clinical Scientist, Haematological Malignancy Diagnostic Service, The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Daniel is a Consultant Clinical Scientist at HMDS Leeds. He is a member of MIG and DIG flow cytometry working groups, an author on international PNH guidelines and UK consensus group for PNH testing.

Michelle Payne

Senior Lecturer in Healthcare Science and Strategic Pathology Workforce and Education Lead, University of Sunderland and North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care System

Michelle is point of care diagnostics lead at the University of Sunderland within the School of Nursing and Health Sciences, where she works as a senior lecturer in Healthcare Science. She also teaches Microbiology and Infection and Prevention and Control to various programmes at the University, supports Biomedical Science placements and final year projects and is Healthcare Science Life Science (PTP) programme lead.

Michelle registered as a Biomedical Scientist in 2003 at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation trust where she worked for 12 years, she retains an honorary contract with the trust. She is currently employed as Strategic Pathology Workforce and Education Lead for the North East and North Cumbria, working nationally with other leads to develop and support the needs and development of the local pathology workforce.

Philippa Pearmain

National Cervical Screening Quality Assurance Lead , NHS England and NHS Improvement

Philippa is a consultant in public health and the National Quality Assurance (QA) Portfolio Lead for Cervical Screening for NHS England and NHS Improvement’s Screening Quality Assurance Service (SQAS). In this role, she leads on the arrangements for the quality assurance of cervical screening services across England. On a regional level, she is the Regional Head of Screening QA for the Midlands and East SQAS team where she has overall responsibility for the QA of the cervical, breast, bowel, aortic aneurysm, diabetic eye and antenatal newborn screening programmes.

Philippa has worked in cervical screening QA since 1998, starting in the West Midlands. Since that time, she has worked on the development of many quality assurance and national guidance documents, local and national data reporting along with the publication of a number of peer-reviewed papers. She also collaborates with colleagues internationally, contributing to expert committees, sharing work at conferences and providing advice on QA activities, including undertaking QA visits.

Claudia Pearse

Workplace Tutor for Applied Biomedical Science, Nottingham Trent University

Claudia is an HCPC registered Biomedical Scientist, currently working as the Workplace Tutor for Applied Biomedical Science at Nottingham Trent University. She completed an integrated BMS degree in 2014 and went on to work as a Specialist BMS in Clinical Chemistry. After obtaining an Hourly Paid Lecturer post with Nottingham Trent University in 2019, she went on to secure a full-time post as Workplace Tutor in 2020.

Claudia's new role predominantly centres around bridging the gap between the apprentice, the workplace and the university - providing support for all parties and maintaining communication and transparency. She also teaches on Professional Practice and Clinical Chemistry based modules.

As an IBMS member with HCPC registration, she is able to support students alongside their workplace in successfully completing the IBMS registration portfolio and linking their university theory to work practice. Her experience as a student working full-time, a biomedical scientist in a busy NHS laboratory and as a lecturer provides a unique insight into the challenges faced by each party, and therefore what support is needed for a successful apprenticeship. She is passionate about Biomedical Science and providing quality teaching and training to future generations.       

Andrew Pember

Education Consultant, Carina Consulting

Andrew has been working in the field of technology assisted learning for more than 20 years, initially in corporate education and then as publishing director for the City & Guilds group and also Pearson Education. He currently runs an education and skills consultancy which helps organisations like the IBMS develop learning services for their end-users. 

Richardia Penn

Education Manager, Institute of Biomedical Science

No bio provided

Suzanne Perry

UKNEQAS ICC & ISH

No bio provided

Michael Perry

Deputy Lead Scientist, UK Anaerobe Reference Unit

Michael Perry is a Clinical Scientist and Higher Specialist Scientist Trainee working in the UK Anaerobe Reference Unit as the Deputy Lead Scientist. Michael is the chair of the Wales Clostridioides difficile Infection Focus Forum (WCDIFF) and was instrumental in the successful implementation of a UKAS (ISO:15189) accredited C. difficile single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) typing service for Wales.

He has specialised in molecular diagnostics for nearly 20 years and, more recently, has been exploring the application of whole genome sequencing (WGS) to better understand anaerobic infection. Areas of particular interest include the epidemiology and pathogenesis of Clostridioides difficile and Fusobacterium necrophorum infections.

Professor John Perry PhD, DSc

Clinical Scientist, Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

John D. Perry, PhD, DSc, is a Clinical Scientist at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. His graduate and post graduate training were at Northumbria University where he serves as a Visiting Professor.

Dr. Perry has a strong interest in the laboratory aspects of antimicrobial chemotherapy and serves as a Senior Editor for the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. He also has a longstanding interest in microbial biochemistry and the design and evaluation of new culture media and other diagnostic methods through the application of enzyme substrates and novel growth inhibitors.

Lee Peters MSc CSci FIBMS

Specialist Service Manager, Swansea Bay University Health Board

Lee Peters is the Specialist service manager for laboratory Medicine in Swansea Bay university Health Board. He has been a Biomedical Scientist since 2004 Where he achieved HCPC registration in Biochemistry.

Lee was previously the POCT Co-ordinator and is currently undertaking a professional doctorate in health professions education in Swansea university, specifically looking at the education of pathology staff in POCT.

Michelle Peters

Public Health Wales

Michelle is the network Health and Safety Manager for the Microbiology Division of Public Health Wales (PHW) and is responsible for the assurance of Health and Safety management for 14 laboratory sites across Wales.

She is dually registered through the HCPC as a Biomedical Scientist and as an Occupational Health and Safety Practitioner with IOSH.

Michelle first qualified in Bacteriology in 2007 and has progressed through various laboratories throughout the PHW network to her current role. Areas of particular interest outside of Health and Safety include Training and Education of staff and Mycology.

Michelle undertakes incident investigation as part of her role and is passionate about sharing learning outcomes to drive best practise.

Dr Stephen Pettit

Consultant Cardiologist , Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Stephen Pettit studied medicine at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and graduated in 2002.  He trained as a Cardiologist in Glasgow and North-West England, before moving to Cambridge and has worked as a Consultant Cardiologist at Royal Papworth Hospital since 2014.

He is Clinical Director of the Transplant Unit.  He works closely with cardiac surgeons, intensivists and specialist nurses, looking after some of the sickest heart failure patients in the UK, including those who may require heart transplantation or mechanical circulatory support.  He is also an accredited cardiac device specialist and implants cardiac resynchronisation therapy pacemakers and defibrillators.

Stephen is Treasurer of the British Society of Heart Failure, sits on the NHS Blood and Transplant Cardiothoracic Audit Group and represents the UK on the iMACS Research Committee.  When not cycling or growing chillies, he tries to raise the profile of advanced heart failure on Twitter @drstephenpettit.

: @drstephenpettit

Dr Srinivas Pillai

Consultant Haematologist , University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust

Srinivas is a consultant haematologist at University Hospitals of the North Midlands, specialising in myeloid disorders. UHNM haematology service delivers comprehensive care to more than 1 million patients covering North Midlands and south Cheshire regions. He is the lead for myeloid service and transplant programme, as well as departmental lead for Genomics and member of west midlands Genomics Tumour Advisory Board.

Srinivas has active interest in clinical research being Principal investigator for a number of clinical trials and current Chair of UHNM Cancer Clinical research facility steering group. His areas of interest are myeloid disorders and clinical application of genomics.

Bruno Ping

Molecular Biologist, Cignpost Diagnostics

No bio provided

Aimee Pinnington

Senior Lecturer, Staffordshire University

Aimee is currently working as a Senior Lecturer at Staffordshire University, where she is also studying for her Professional Doctorate in Healthcare Science. Aimee was previously employed as a Specialist Biomedical Scientist in Haematology & Transfusion at University Hospitals North Midlands, where she completed the validation of peritoneal dialysis fluid testing using the Advia 2120i as part of her MSc project.

Dr Sarah Pitt

Principal Lecturer, University of Brighton

No bio provided

Dr Adrian Plunkett

Consultant Paediatric Intensivist , Learning from Excellence, Birmingham Women's and Children's NHS Foundation Trust

Adrian is a Consultant Paediatric Intensivist at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.  He created Learning from Excellence (LfE) in 2014 after reflecting on his own experiences as a patient. In addition to leading LfE in his own organisation, Adrian also supports the spread and development of LfE as a social movement in the NHS, and beyond. 

Adrian regularly talks on LfE at conferences and workshops, and maintains the website and blog at www.learningfromexcellence.com

Vin Poran

HM Principal Specialist Inspector, Health and Safety Executive

Vin is a Principal Specialist Inspector in the Microbiology and Biotechnology unit - tasked with ensuring that risks to an individual’s health and safety from work with biological agents are properly controlled. He provides technical advice to the HSE and other government departments on the workplace effects and wider impact of infectious diseases and is the HSE lead for the High Consequence Infectious Disease units in the UK.

Dr Eleanor Powers

Consultant in Public Health Medicine, Health Inequalities Lead flu and Covid Vaccination Programmes , NHS England and Improvement, East of England

Dr Ele is a Consultant in Public Health Medicine in the East of England. Having qualified in medicine, she chose the public health speciality training route in 2016 and spent the first year of the pandemic in local authority and Public Health England outbreak response.

In January 2021, she joined the East of England covid vaccination programme as health inequalities lead and has been working closely with CCG teams, local authorities and the regional programme to identify and mitigate inequalities in vaccine uptake in communities and places.

Dr Ric Proctor

Consultant In Emergency Medicine, Chair North East Regional Transfusion Committee, The James Cook University Hospital, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Ric is a transfusion advocate for Emergency Medicine and has helped to develop and progress Major Haemorrhage Protocols within a Major Trauma Centre.  He is a Consultant in Emergency Medicine and Chair of the Northeast Regional Transfusion Committee. 

As a part of his roles he has helped to progress the merger of the Northeast with Yorkshire & Humber RTC, implemented unique identification for unknown trauma patients facilitating early major haemorrhage access, developed a Major Haemorrhage Transfusion tool to improve documentation and focus on Trauma Induced Coagulopathy, and brought trauma transfusion research to our department.  They now collaborate nationally with the other Major Trauma Centres to deliver RCT level data for injured patients.

Dr Anthony Psarras

Internal Medicine Trainee , King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Anthony enrolled on the Internal Medicine Training programme at London Deanery, currently undertaking his final year rotations at King's College Hospital. After completing his medical degree (MD), he followed postgraduate studies in Immunology (MSc) at Imperial College London, where he submitted his thesis on the pathogenicity of anti-dsDNA antibodies in patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE).

Dr Anthony was then awarded a doctoral research scholarship to undertake a PhD in the Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine with Dr Ed Vital and Prof Paul Emery in collaboration with Prof George Tsokos at Harvard Medical School. He successfully completed his PhD in 2018 investigating type I interferon regulation in SLE and providing novel insights in the development of early stages of autoimmunity.

Al-Amara Rafique

Technical Expert, UK NEQAS Cellular Pathology Technique

With over 12 years’ experience working in Diagnostic Cellular Pathology laboratories, including working as a Senior Biomedical Scientist in routine histology and dissection - Al-Amara has always had a special interest in demonstration and staining techniques and has utilised her vast knowledge, educational experience and expertise in troubleshooting specialist demonstration techniques.

Currently working at UK NEQAS CPT as Technical Expert, she is sharing her expertise and knowledge and assisting participants with technical queries and troubleshooting, for continuous quality improvement . As well as being the UK NEQAS CPT Technical Expert, she is also a UK NEQAS CPT assessor for the Renal, BMT and General Schemes.

Jennifer Ratner

Higher Specialist Scientist Trainee (HSST), The Mid-Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust

Jennifer is a 2nd year HSST Trainee in Microbiology, based at The Mid-Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. Prior to this role, she completed the Microbiology Scientist Training Programme training programme in 2015 and went on to work as a Clinical Scientist at The Mycology Reference Laboratory, Leeds for the next five years specialising in the diagnosis and treatment of fungal infections.

Jennifer has also undertaken research into the respiratory mycobiome in asthma and cystic fibrosis patients.

Derren Ready

Consultant In Public Health Infection , UK Health Security Agency, Field Services, South West England

Derren is a Consultant Clinical Scientist in Public Health Infections at UK Health Security Agency South West. His main duties focus on microbiology diagnostic test interpretation, infection prevention control and outbreak management in Health/Social Care settings and community institutions.

Derren's research has focused on the identification and characterisation of pathogenic bacteria and viruses in people during disease and outbreaks. He has published 72 peer reviewed papers, 8 book chapters and 1 review, and has a strong interest in health inequalities, environmental microbiology, epidemiology and genomics.

Samantha Reynolds

Trainee Consultant Clinical Scientist, University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust

Originally starting as a biomedical scientist, Samantha been working in Plymouth for the last 20 years in blood transfusion. In 2016 she achieved the Certificate of Equivalence and became a clinical scientist. This allowed her to gain entry onto the 5 year in-service HSST (Higher Specialist Scientific Training) programme, which she will hopefully be completing this year so that she can develop this new role within her hospital blood transfusion department.

As her hospital has been using blood grouping analysers from Immucor for a few years, she will be talking about the different types of assays that are available on the analysers in her session.

Kirstie Rice

The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust

Kirstie originally qualified as a Biomedical Scientist in histology in 1997 and then started to train in cervical cytology from 2000, whilst based in Lancaster before moving to Wolverhampton as a Senior Biomedical Scientist in 2004. Currently, she is employed as a Consultant Biomedical Scientist in cervical cytology based at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton, currently undertaking the ASD in histology reporting (gynaecological) (stage C) - my previous training in histology has definitely been very beneficial.

Currently, chair of the cytology advisory panel but stepping down from this after Congress after 7 years as a member (4 as chair) to allow more time for histology reporting training. Committed vegan since 2017 after nearly 30 years being vegetarian. Enjoy running for fitness and mental health with friends working in New Cross, 5 of us are running the London Landmarks Half Marathon on 3rd April (will be my third half marathon).

Dr Riina Richardson

Consultant Medical Mycologist, Mycology Reference Centre Manchester and Department of Infectious Diseases and Division of Evolution, Infection and Genomics, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester

Dr Riina is the Clinical Head of Service for the NHS Mycology Reference Centre at the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, and a Senior Lecturer in Infectious Diseases and Medical Education at the University of Manchester.

She is a Medical Mycologist with expertise in oral microbiology, medical microbiology, medical mycology, infectious diseases, infection prevention, antimicrobial stewardship, mucosal immunology as well as oral and vaginal health and disease. She also has a special interest in medical education. To date, Dr Riina has published a total of over 170 peer-reviewed articles and books or book chapters.

Gareth Richardson

Greater Manchester Pathology Network Workforce Development Lead, Training Officer for the Division of Laboratory Medicine, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Dr David Ricketts DBMS CSci FIBMS

Head of Laboratory Process Improvement, Health Services Laboratories LLP. Chair of BSI ISOTC212 Mirror Committee, British Standards Institution,

David currently works as head of process improvement for Health Service Laboratories in central London, which is part of the wider Sonic Healthcare group.

David chairs the TC212 mirror committee and is head of delegation for the UK on the international TC212 committee. David has experience in writing standards and was the project lead on ISO22870 as well as being involved in many other projects.

David has a strong background in laboratory process improvement and links this to the needs of compliance with ISO requirements.

David has spoken nationally and internationally on a wide range of subjects including quality and compliance.

John Ringrow

UKAS

After gaining a degree in Biochemistry and Microbiology from Leeds University, John’s first post was as a company microbiologist in a small scientific consultancy specialising in foods, waters, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals and sterile manufacture processes. His main interests however were in medical microbiology so he joined Poole PHLS and hospital microbiology laboratories, where he completed the then IBMS Special exam.

John then moved to County Durham, developed an interest in management and quality, gained qualifications in such and held senior, management then quality management posts until the end of 2005.

John joined CPA (UK) Ltd as a full time Regional Assessor in January 2006. CPA is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) and since June 2013 he was an Assessment Manager (AM) with UKAS and from November 2014, promoted to Senior Assessment Manager. He manages other AMs and is active in various projects, including training in ISO 15189:2012 and ISO 22870:2016 and developing training for new AMs.

During John’s professional career and in his many outside interests and activities, he has always developed his interest in teaching, training and biomedical science promotion and career development and been active in education and development of scientific and support staff. He has actively promoted pathology to a wider audience within the NHS and has been involved in both medical and nursing staff education.

John has been involved in and tutored on courses for the IBMS, been a training/portfolio assessor for the CPSM and then IBMS, panel member for the HCPC and been a lay board member for the Northern Deanery involved with post graduate medical education. He has presented at numerous local and national meetings on both scientific and management themes, and since working for CPA and then UKAS, he now presents regularly on quality and accreditation themes.

When not working, John has a passion for all things “trains, planes, automobiles and motorcycles” and can be found at heritage railways or practicing advanced driving techniques both in cars or on one of his growing collection of motorcycles.

Dr Janine Robb

Head Of Global Technical Support , Quotient, Edinburgh

Janine started her career as a Medical Laboratory Assistant and went onto do all her education and development whilst working for Quotient, which used to be part of the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service. She now has over thirty years blood group diagnostics experience, over half of which has been in product development.

Janine came up with the idea to do blood typing on microarrays, and since then gained her PhD on that topic and Quotient has now developed this as their MosaiQ Technology. She currently heads up Alba Product Development and Technical Support at Quotient, and has involvement in patents, life cycle management, risk management and clinical studies.

Rashmi Rook

Quality Consultant, Formerly of Surrey And Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust

Rashmi recently retired from the NHS to set up a quality consultancy, prior to this he has been a TLM for over 26yrs at various hospitals, and together with his team developed he managed the transfusion QMS.

Rashmi was chair of UK Transfusion Laboratory Collaborative from 2015-2021. The focus for the group was to provide guidance and support, as well as encourage collaboration across the amazing transfusion community, as well as to advise on staff capacity planning to ensure that realistic staffing levels are set across the laboratories to enable continuous development of services and to help meet regulatory and accreditation standards.

Rashmi Rungta

Born in 1970 in Kolkata, a sprawling city in the east of India, Rashmi's family witnessed the very first symptoms of Myasthenia Gravos (MG) when she was just six months old. After a fall, she turned blue and eventually her eyes started to droop. She also started to get breathless during breastfeeds and was floppy. As these were unusual symptoms, it made Rashmi's parents very anxious. They started to seek several medical opinions and treatments, including homeopathy. The treatments helped slightly but the symptoms persisted. She was diagnosed with MG by the end of the year and additionally cretinism and hypothyroidism 2 years later.

When her eyes drooped, Rashmi would use her left hand to lift her right eye and play with her right hand, which resulted in a peripheral vision in her left eye, since it remained closed.

When she turned seven, Rashmi underwent a thymectomy at the UCLA (USA) hospital and at ten years, became a research patient in NIH Bethesda because it was unknown to have autoimmune acquired MG as a 6-month-old. She was treated by renowned neurologist Dr W K Engel.

Growing up with MG (Challenges and Successes) - in her own words

Living with MG has not been smooth sailing and I have had my fair share of ups and downs with the latter being more predominant. I have never known any normalcy but just either bad or worse.

My condition did improve after thymectomy and being treated at NIH. Steroids caused a lot of weight gain and excessive hair on my body. My condition was managed in India via general doctors in consultation with the US medics, however I kept having bad episodes from time to time.

Due to lack of societal awareness and understanding of such a condition, I faced multiple challenges as a child. At school, I was often bullied and excluded from joining in with other girls at play time. I was subjected to nasty pranks at an early age, which left me feeling vulnerable and lacking in confidence. As the youngest sibling of two much older brothers, I grew up in a protected environment. All the factors combined made me into a shy and socially awkward adolescent especially due to my droopy eyes. Because MG is such an invisible and unpredictable condition, my family struggled as well in my upbringing. If I fell ill or lost consciousness due to fits, then my family panicked.

Despite the odds, I aspired to become an engineer from a young age, to follow in the footsteps of my father and brothers. I decided to take a leap of faith and went to the University away from home, but due to my condition and lack of support and public awareness, I struggled to adjust. I decided to drop out and return home. The adverse impact of my condition was not only on my physical and mental wellbeing but cemented a misconception at home that I was incompetent. This was going to have lasting impact on my self-esteem throughout the rest of my life.

I had a few relapses of MG and at one point, it resulted in a collar bone fracture from falling down the stairs. Crash diet to lose weight resulted in blood transfusion as well at the same time.

I persevered to put the challenges behind me and at the age of twenty-five, I embarked on a new chapter with my first corporate job offer in my hand. I started to focus on my career and soon enjoyed the successes. My career took me to different parts of the world – UK, Germany, and the USA.

I worked hard to convert my weaknesses into strengths and equipped myself with the right tools to further my career and take on new challenges. I have been on the senior management team and have built and led teams of over 50, for large MNCs such as Fujitsu Consulting, ITC Infotech, Siebel, Cap Gemini, Churchill, Deloitte. My clients have included FTSE 100 industry leading like BAT, Telia Sonera, IBM and so on.

I did face medical issues from time to time and sought treatment in the respective country. The only visible sign of my condition was my droopy eyes, but I learnt to ignore unwarranted stares or quizzes and the progress in my career helped. I moved cities within India as well and lived independently.

On a family trip to the US in 1996 and working in UK in 1998, I went back to Dr Engel, whereby he prescribed me prednisolone and Vit B12. While I was in Germany from 1999 to 2001, I was the subject of research at the Max Planck Institute where I was prescribed pyridostigmine and Azathioprine, although I did not start the medications due to a personal situation.

In 2008 during my late thirties, my condition started flaring up again and an anti-allergic medication aggravated it further. As a result, I was unable to hold my hands up, walk and talk for more than 5 minutes, comb my hair, wear clothes, climb or descend stairs etc. A neurologist started me on Mestinon every 4 to 5 hours, which helped immensely.

On my next upcoming trip to the USA, I went back to Dr Engel in the University of Southern California in early 2009. After extensive examination, I was prescribed Azathioprine with steroids, but I refused to take any steroids after having experienced severe side effects as a child. I continued to take Mestinon for temporary relief of my muscle weaknesses. Back in India, the Indian neurologist increased the dosage of Azathioprine, which landed me in the intensive care due to severe viral infection, high fever and difficulty in breathing and swallowing. With IVIG, I came out of intensive care. I was able to stop Mestinon and just take it on emergency basis eventually.

I decided to join London Business School on a prestigious master’s programme. and post my degree, decided to make London my permanent home. I am currently under the care of a specialist neurologist. As she was not convinced about my acquired MG at such a young age of 6 months, hence my bloods were tested at Oxford University. All the results came negative for Congenital MG and she confirmed that it is indeed acquired.

Professionally, I worked at Deloitte Consulting and then became responsible as Country Head for an overseas SME. I have engaged with the likes of industry leading clients Unilever, Harley Davidson, USAID and so on.

Being on immunosuppressant makes me vulnerable to infections and I have been admitted to the A&E thrice – 2 times due to viral infections (Norovirus and Rotavirus) and 1 due to a vertigo episode. I was shielding during the pandemic and have now taken 4 vaccinations, although not sure how protected I am.

Within 3 years of being in London, I joined Myaware, a charity supporting people with myasthenia, as a member. It has been extremely helpful to meet and learn from others living with the same condition and contribute as well. I am now also a Trustee of this organisation and want to contribute to the well-being of everyone who faces these challenges every day of their lives.

I am always ready for new challenges and have always believed that where there is a will, there is a way. I have not let MG conquer me but rather conquered MG to the best extent possible!!

Laura Ryall

Regional Head of Operations, PHE East of England , UK Health Security Agency

No bio provided

David Ryder

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust

Initially qualifying as a teacher, David retrained in 2003 and moved into Biomedical Science specialising in haematology. After working in haematology for 11 years an opportunity arose to become the first full time Point of Care Testing Coordinator at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay (UHMBfT). He fully embraced the role, using his interest in IT to full effect to firstly connect blood gas machines into the Trust electronic patient record and then later to integrate glucose meters and influenza testing into the patient record, using a mix of home-grown interfaces and commercially available middleware.

In his current role, David is responsible for POCT in 3 acute hospitals and 3 community hospitals along with the community nursing team and other community-based services. He provides advice on POCT for use within primary care.

Over the last 8 years David has seen POCT grow massively. He is still the sole POCTC (Jan 2022) and is currently working hard to grow a team to improve the governance of POCT within his Trust.

Dr Ross Sadler

Consultant Clinical Scientist, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Ross works at Laboratory Immunology, at Oxford and has been a Consultant Scientist there for the last 5 years.

Corrina Sampson

Principal Consultant, Lifecycle Consulting Services

Corina has over 12 years’ experience in a variety of roles in the NHS, with a clinical background as a respiratory specialist Physiotherapist, before moving to Programme Management and specialising in Pathology programmes in 2017.

Having gained experience managing large-scale projects for a network of London Trusts, she brings a diverse understanding of Pathology operations, service improvement and the implementation of new operating models across NHS Trusts and networks.

Some of Corina’s recent achievements are:

• Leading on the development of a successful Pathology networking business case on behalf of three London Trusts, managing multiple workstreams across the Trusts including workforce, commercial & finance, IMT, and procurement.
   
• Responsible for supporting the clinical and operational development of a new target operating model for the network, and production of plans to operationalise the new model.
   
• Successful operational planning and subsequent management of the Pathology and Mortuary services at the Nightingale Hospital, London at the first peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
   
• Leading on a large-scale laboratory estates re-design project, in conjunction with the implementation of a Pathology managed service contract for a network of laboratories, improving efficiency and quality across the network.
   
• Design, implementation, and management of an NHS community diagnostic service, working with commissioners and GP practices to improve early diagnosis of chronic conditions and ensure seamless pathways of care for patients. Conducting unique research on the severity of newly diagnosed lung conditions in the homeless population, with an abstract presented at the American Thoracic Society Conference in San Diego.

Dave Sanders

Assessment Manager, United Kingdom Accreditation Service

Dave is an Assessment Manager and Technical Assessor for UKAS with experience of ISO 15189 and ISO 17043. Having initially trained as a Biomedical Scientist in Microbiology and has recently become a Clinical Scientist, he has nearly 30 years of experience of diagnostic andrology in DGH’s and NHS fertility units.

He has been Chair and Treasurer of the ABA, Deputy Chair of ARCS and Chaired their Andrology SIG

Lt Col Rob Sandford

Strategy Director’s Office, Ministry of Defence

Lieutenant Colonel Rob Sandford is an Army Officer currently serving in the Ministry of Defence's Strategic Hub at its Head Office in Whitehall. In a 25-year career, he has served in several operational theatres, held a variety of staff roles around the UK and overseas and commanded at platoon, company and regimental level.

Most recently, during the first year of the pandemic, he commanded the Army Training Centre at Pirbright, the Army's busiest recruit training establishment. He will be drawing on that experience and experiences throughout his career, for the content of his presentation.

Dr Ann Sandison

Consultant Histopathologist, Honorary Senior Lecturer, King's College London, Guy's and St.Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Ann is a Consultant Histopathologist and Honorary Senior Lecturer at King's College London with a specialist interest in head and neck cancer. She has been working in London at Guys Hospital since 2017 specialising entirely in Head & Neck, Oral and Maxillofacial pathology. Before then she worked for 18 years at Charing Cross Hospital, Imperial College where she was Head and Neck Pathology Lead and MDT chair. Her expertise is recognised in the UK and internationally and she is regularly asked to teach Head and Neck Pathology on courses for the Royal College of Pathologists, the European Society of Pathology and the International Academy of Pathology.

Dr Ann has contributed chapters in the soon to be published 5th Edition of the WHO blue book on the Classification of Head and Neck Tumours.

Sheri Scott

Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Science, Nottingham Trent University

Sheri Scott is a Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Science and course leader for the BSc Applied Biomedical Science (Healthcare Science Apprenticeship) at Nottingham Trent University (NTU). She teaches Clinical Biochemistry and is module leader and lecturer for the Biomedical Science in practice and Professional practice undergraduate modules. Sheri works closely with the employability team at NTU to help prepare students for a career in Biomedical Science.

Sheri joined NTU in January 2018 after a career covering 22 years working in Clinical Biochemistry in NHS laboratories. Her previous roles include Senior Biomedical Scientist at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, Training lead in Blood sciences at Royal Derby hospital and a Biomedical Scientist at Nottingham City Hospital.

Sheri is a chartered scientist and registered HCPC registered Biomedical Scientist professional and is an active fellow member of the Institute of Biomedical Science. Her professional activities include assessor for the Science Council, IBMS Clinical Biochemistry advisory panel member, chief examiner of the higher specialist diploma, local CPD officer and verifier/assessor for the IBMS registration and specialist portfolios. She is also involved in the national STEM ambassador programme, promoting careers in science in schools.

Sheri’s myriad of professional activities and strong links with local hospitals provide continued professional insight, supporting students within Biosciences at NTU.

Chris Scott

Scientific and Operational Lead Biomedical Scientist for Immunology, East and South East London Pathology Partnership

Chris Scott is the Scientific and Operational Lead Biomedical Scientist for Immunology at East and South East London Pathology Partnership which covers seven main hospital sites. The service is ever-developing. In the past five years Pathology at Barts has undergone a Trust Merger, entered into a managed service contract with a primary provider, implemented a single LIMS, and became ISO accredited with a single quality management system over seven sites and 15 different disciplines.

Chris is the Chief Examiner for Immunology at the Institute of Biomedical Science, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel. He co-edited “Clinical Immunology”, which is part of the Fundamentals of Biomedical Science book series. He has over 30 years’ experience of running an ever-changing diagnostic laboratory service.

Owen Seddon

Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology, Public Health Wales

Owen is a Consultant in Microbiology and ID based at the University Hospital of Wales. He runs the OPAT service (Outpatient Parenteral Antibiotic Therapy) as well as contributing to a busy inpatient and outpatient clinical infection service. He was involved in most aspects of Hospital COVID-19, including designing pathways, education for clinicians, treating patients and clinical research.

Dr Vivek Sekhawat

Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Vivek is a trainee histopathologist based at St Thomas' Hospital, London, with an interest in infectious diseases and autopsy pathology.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he worked as part of a dedicated autopsy pathology team, alongside two consultant histopathologists and an anatomical pathology technologist (APT), performing consented full hospital autopsies on patients who had died from COVID-19 between April and June 2020. 

Fabio Sgarabottolo

A. Menarini Diagnostics

No bio provided

Dipika Shah

UKNEQAS - Blood Transfusion Laboratory Practice

Dipika started her career at Newham General hospital after enquiring about jobs regarding blood transfusion, the curiosity landed a first job for her as a Trainee Biomedical Scientist back in the 1990’s. She qualified as a Biomedical Scientist at Newham and went on to be acting senior for Haemoglobinopathy for a few years.

Dipika's 10 years at Newham General ended when she got married and moved to north west London, moving to Clementine Churchill Hospital, a small BMI hospital which was a perfect move as it was walking distance from her new marital home.

She spent two years working in a small private lab and multi-disciplinary on weekend and night shifts which saw her career journey take her back to the NHS at the Royal Free Hospital where she worked as a Biomedical Scientist for a year. A senior role then took Dipika to Northwick Park Hospital where she stayed for 17 years until UKNEQAS BTLP had a rare job going and she started just three weeks before lockdown in 2020. Orignially based at Watford General Hospital until November last year, they moved to a lovely new location at Croxley Park.

Dr Behdad Shambayati

Berkshire & Surrey Pathology Services

No bio provided

Dr Michael Simmons

Consultant in Public Health Microbiology, Public Health Wales

Mike Simmons is a consultant microbiologist. His training in microbiology was interrupted by active service in the Falklands War but he managed to qualify as a consultant with the Royal Navy before moving to the late departed PHLS.

He joined the NHS in 1990 before working for the CMO in Wales in 2000. Since 2010 he has been back in Carmarthen, where he is the clinical lead for microbiology for the Hywel Dda University Health Board, covering Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion and Pembrokeshire.

Describing himself as “long in the tooth”, Michael believes he may be the oldest active microbiologist in Wales and that there is "life in this old sea-dog yet" and Narrative Reporting, which he hopes will be his lasting legacy. In any event, he has found that Narrative Reporting offers an exciting new string to the clinical BMS bow, which he will share.

Robert Simpson

Interim Network Director, ME-5 Pathology Network

Robert is currently interim network director and pathology incident director for the Midlands and East 5 pathology network.

A Fellow of the IBMS, Robert has been around long enough to remember when pocket calculators were next “big thing” He’s been interested in how computers and IT can help biomedical scientists to provide better services for patients and clinicians ever since. He is the Institute’s clinical informatics lead; he chairs NHS Digital’s Pathology Standards Governance Board and is the IBMS’s nominee on the Royal College of Pathologists Informatics Committee and the Professional Records Standards Body.

Robert also represents the IBMS on BSI committees LBI/1/2 Laboratory Equipment, which he chairs, and LBI/1/1 Laboratory Furniture and Fittings. He is an RCPath Consulting advisor, a Fellow of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics, a coach on the Green Templeton College coaching programme at the University of Oxford, and a mentor on the IBMS mentoring scheme.

Faye Sims

Operational Manager, Peterborough City Hospital, North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust

Rev Dr Gordon Sinclair

No bio provided

Melanie Smith

Senior Scientific Advisor to CSO, UK Health Security Agency

No bio provided

Ian Smith

AB Scientific

No bio provided

Jane Starczynski

NHS England

No bio provided

Julie Staves

Blood Bank Manager , Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Tracey Stevenson CSci FIBMS

Consultant Biomedical Scientist in Cytology, Royal Devon & Exeter NHS Foundation Trust

Tracey has now been an employee of the NHS as a Cytologist for the last 35 years and she remains passionate about the subject. She is originally from Lanarkshire in Scotland but began her cytology career in London. Tracey currently works in the Cytology department at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital in Devon.

Tracey is a consultant biomedical scientist and laboratory manager. She is also the training co-ordinator for Cellular Pathology and a Quality manager. Since the transfer of the cervical cytology service to Bristol she no longer reports these cases; however she continues to report diagnostic cytology and attend ENT, thyroid, EUS Pancreas and EBUS clinics as part of our ROSE setup.

Tracey is a member of the IBMS Cytopathology Advisory Panel and was involved in the work to create the new diagnostic cytology specialist portfolio.

Beverley Straker-Bennett

Joint POCT Lead, Blackpool Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Beverley has a particular interest with Point of Care Testing Anticoagulation devices, INR results and warfarin treatment completing her Masters degree project in this field three years ago.

She worked previously as a Senior Biomedical Scientist in the Blackpool's large Anticoagulant service for five years and led a number of projects including introduction of anticoagulant E referrals for the Trust, transition of the department to full POCT testing both within clinics and on a large domiciliary service, implementation of ISO 15189/22870 guidelines within the service, and also acted as sub principle investigator for large clinical research study in this area.

Gary Strong

National CPD Lead, College of Paramedics

Gary is the National CPD Lead at the College of Paramedics. His career in health and education spans thirty-six years. He worked for a number of UK ambulance services as an operational paramedic, before taking on his first education role as a Clinical Tutor in Gloucester in 2002.

In 2009 he moved to New Zealand, where he was the Education Manager at Wellington Free Ambulance and then Programme Lead for BHSc Paramedic at Whitireia NZ. He was a founder member of Paramedics Australasia New Zealand, the professional body for paramedics in Aotearoa, now part of the Australasian College of Paramedicine. In recent years he has led the BSc Paramedic Practitioner programme at Plymouth University and is now an Associate Lecturer at the Peninsula Medical School.

In his current role, Gary chairs the Interprofessional CPD and Lifelong learning UK Working Group, which represents 20 non-medical professional bodies and trade unions. He holds postgraduate education qualifications from the University of the West of England, The University of Auckland and the University of Plymouth.

Caroline Swales

Blood Transfusion Section Leader, Freeman Hospital, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Caroline is an Advanced Biomedical Scientist working as a Section Lead in Blood Transfusion at the Newcastle Trust. She graduated from Nottingham Trent University with a BSc (Hons) in Biomedical Science in 2010 and went on to complete the IBMS registration portfolio and the specialist portfolio in Haematology and Transfusion while working at the Trust.

Caroline worked out of hours shifts for 6 years during which she completed an MSc in Biomedical Science (distinction) from Ulster University. Caroline has recently passed the IBMS Higher Specialist Diploma in Transfusion Science.

Nicola Swarbrick

Laboratory Incident Specialist, Serious Hazards of Transfusion (SHOT)

Siobhan Taylor

Clinical Scientist in Cellular Pathology , Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Andrew Teggert

Principal Clinical Scientist, South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust11.00

No bio provided

Keeley Thwaites

Clinical Scientist, IHC and MD lead Biomedical Scientist, Barking Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust

Keeley is a Clinical Scientist and the Immunohistochemistry (IHC) and Molecular Diagnostics (MD) Lead Biomedical Scientist at Queen’s hospital, Romford. She started her career in Cellular Pathology in 2003 after graduating with an upper first-class honour’s degree in Biochemistry from Queen Mary College, University of London.

Keeley completed the IBMS Certificate of Competence in 2005 and joined the HCPC register. In 2009, she completed a master’s degree in Cellular Pathology at the University of Westminster and took up the position of IHC lead at Queen’s Hospital. Over the past eleven years she has led the development of the molecular diagnostics service and the expansion of the companion diagnostic testing. The development of the in-house serve meant her role had greater clinical focus and so in 2018 completed the Academy of Healthcare Science STP equivalence portfolio and joined the HCPC Clinical Scientist register in 2019.

Keeley is now a consultant clinical scientist in training, she started the National School of Healthcare Science Higher Specialist Scientific Training (HSST) programme in 2020 which includes completion of RCPath parts one and two in molecular pathology of aquired disease, a post graduate diploma in leadership and management in healthcare and PhD research project. In 2020 she founded The IHC Network when she was selected to join the Chief Scientific Officer’s (CSO) Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) leadership programme. The network aims to offer support and conversations between those working with IHC laboratories across the world.

Keeley takes a keen interest in education and the promotion of Biomedical Science and is a module tutor on the MSc Biomedical Science degree course at Anglia Ruskin university and previous visiting lecturer at University of Westminster. Keeley has sat on the Institute of Biomedical Science London Region Cellular Pathology Discussion Group Committee since 2009. This is a non-profit organisation which aims to provide a forum to promote and develop cellular pathology through educational lectures, talks and seminars throughout London.

During the past ten years Keeley has chaired meetings and presented at day symposiums. Through her voluntary role on the committee she can educate, encourage CPD and promote healthcare science. She has been a UKNEQAS IHC and ISH assessor since 2017, assessing on the HER2 DDISH and PR modules.

Dr Sarah Titchen

Consultant Clinical Psychologist , Ministry of Defence

Dr Titchen is a consultant clinical psychologist in Defence Primary Healthcare in the Ministry of Defence. After she qualified with a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Staffordshire and Keele University in 2016, she went on to work in adult mental health in Midlands Partnership Foundation Trust. She specialises in working with adults who have a history of trauma and complex trauma and relational difficulties. She has experience utilising a range of approached including Intensive Short-Term Dynamic Psychotherapy, Compassion-Focussed Therapy and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Sarah has worked across a range of services including community mental health, substance misuse, and prison mental health as well as currently working with the military. During the Covid pandemic she engaged with a programme to offer assessment and treatment to junior doctors working in NHS services. She has special interests in the impact of trauma, supervision, training, staff support, leadership and service development.

Lorraine Turner

Accreditation Director, UKAS

Lorraine is the Accreditation Director at UKAS. She has a broad portfolio of responsibilities including technical governance, new business development, government engagement and external affairs.

Lorraine is a chemist by background and first joined UKAS in July 1995 and since then has held a variety of roles across the operations and technical areas of UKAS. She has extensive experience in the assessment and accreditation process as well as in standards and policy development. She led the integration of CPA into UKAS and the transition of accreditation to ISO 15189, and has led the development of a number of healthcare accreditation schemes including diagnostic imaging, physiological sciences and medical physics.

Lorraine participates in a number of European and international accreditation and standards committees and participates in multiple groups providing advice on accreditation to government and national regulators and global agencies. Lorraine holds a BSc (Hons) in Chemistry and an MSc in Analytical Chemistry, she is a Chartered Chemist and holds membership of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Directors. She was appointed as a Trustee of the Science Council in July 2021.

Dr Florian Uhle

Inflammatix, Associate Director Medical Affairs Europe, Pro-Lab Diagnostics

No bio provided

Dr Ines Ushiro-Lumb

Consultant Clinical Virologist , NHS Blood & Transplant

Dr Ines is a Consultant Clinical Virologist at NHS Blood and Transplant, where she is the Lead Clinical Microbiologist for Organ and Tissue Donation and Transplantation, and Clinical Director of the Virology Reference Laboratory. Inês is also a Consultant Virologist at the UK Health Security Agency. Member of various committees on the quality and safety in transfusion and transplantation and elected councillor of the International Society for Organ Donation and the Transplant Infectious Diseases section of the Transplantation Society.

Dr Cynthia Van der Horst

Consultant Cytopathologist, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Queen Elizabeth University Hospital

Dr Cynthia is a consultant Cytopathologist at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Glasgow and Honorary clinical lecturer at Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities. She is Head of Diagnostic Cytopathology at Queen Elizabeth Hospital and has a special interest in teaching and training.

Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam

Deputy Chief Medical Officer , Department of Health and Social Care

Jonathan Van-Tam MBE was born and educated in Lincolnshire and trained as a physician in Nottingham. He is a public health specialist with a background in emergency medicine, and served as Medical Officer to Lincolnshire ACF from 1988-2000. Jonathan has a specialist academic interest in respiratory virus pandemics and is Professor of Health Protection at the University of Nottingham. His career has taken him to academia, Public Health England, the World Health Organization, and the vaccine industry.

Jonathan was seconded to the Department of Health and Social Care in 2017 as Deputy Chief Medical Officer. He has played a key role in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly the acquisition and rollout of vaccines. He has reluctantly acquired public recognition for his direct and no-nonsense communication style at the podium of No.10 Downing Street.

Lisa Vipond

Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust

No bio provided

Alan Wainwright

Executive Head of Education, IBMS

Until retirement next month, Alan is the Executive Head of Education at the IBMS. He is a Chartered Scientist and HCPC registered biomedical scientist.

Alan has spent 20 years as a senior manager at the IBMS with responsibility for the degree accreditation programme, working with universities in the UK and abroad. He has extensive experience in the development of regulatory standards, professional qualifications, training standards and CPD.

Alan has been an invited speaker at several international conferences and frequently gives presentations in the UK. In 2016, he was appointed to the Board of Directors for the International Federation of Biomedical Laboratory Scientists and in 2018 became President-Elect, progressing to President in September 2020. This provides an excellent opportunity to use his experience to further the development of the profession nationally and internationally.

Before the IBMS, Alan qualified with Fellowship examinations in Histopathology (1976) and Immunology (1984). A move to Clinical Immunology at the Royal London Hospital in 1989 enabled him to progress to Operations Manager. Subsequently, a move to Operations Manager for Clinical Biochemistry preceded promotion to Pathology Business Manager in 1997. Involvement with the London Region IBMS Branch led to his election to the IBMS Council immediately prior to his appointment as a member of the senior staff.

Gavin Wall MSc MBA DipRCPath

Director of Medical Affairs (Infectious Diseases), QIAGEN

No bio provided

Lesley Walsh

Andrology Laboratory & Quality Manager, Fertility Fusion, Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

In 1979 Lesley started her career in a general pathology department, before specialising in Cytology and becoming a Senior Biomedical Scientist. A few years later, alongside the Cytology, she also began doing a few sessions a week in the newly formed Assisted Conception Unit as an Embryologist/ Andrologist.

Lesley teaches Andrology to pre-registration apprentices, Cell Path students & junior doctors. Lesley is also an Andrology logbook marker, mentor and supervisor for ARCS (The Association of Reproductive & Clinical Scientists).

Chris Ward

Head of Examinations, Institute of Biomedical Science

Chris is the Head of Examinations at the Institute of Biomedical Science.

He graduated in 1996 from University of Wales, Swansea in Geography and gained his PGCE the following year from the University of Leicester. After two years teaching at secondary school level, he then spent eight and half years at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) where he worked on the development and implementation of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) and the accreditation of hundreds of vocational qualifications across a wide range of subjects.

He then spent four and half years at another professional body (the Institute of Administrative Management (IAM) were he led the work on ensuring the organisation maintained regulatory compliance and the assessment of qualifications at Level 2 to 6.

Chris joined the IBMS in January 2014 where he has responsibility for all five distance learning courses, and all the DEP, ASD and HSD qualifications that the Institute offers. He also co-ordinates the work of the eight specialist advisory panels and three RCPath/IBMS Conjoint Boards and is also involved in the (re)accreditation of IBMS accredited BSc and MSc degree programmes.

Sophie Ward

Trainee Clinical Scientist (Clinical Biochemistry), North West London Pathology, Charing Cross Hospital London

Sophie is a Trainee Clinical Scientist in Clinical Biochemistry based at Charing Cross Hospital, part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She is currently in her third year of the Scientist Training Programme (STP), and has spent time working with the Harvey’s Gang charity during her training period.

Sophie obtained a Masters in Clinical Biochemistry from the University of Manchester prior to joining the STP and upon completion hopes to enter the field of paediatric clinical biochemistry.

Dr Sheila Waugh MBChB, BSc, PhD, MRCPCH, FRCPath

Consultant Medical Virologist, Microbiology and Virology, Freeman Hospital, The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals, NHS Foundation Trust

Sheila is a Consultant Virologist in Newcastle upon Tyne. She worked in paediatrics and neonates before training in Virology in both Glasgow and Newcastle. She took time out of training to complete a PhD at Glasgow University. In 2008 she took up a Consultant post in Newcastle Hospitals, where she has remained since. She is an examiner in Virology for the Royal College of Pathologists and the clinical virology representative on the UK Specialist Advisory Committee on Genetic Modification. She is currently Clinical Lead for Virology in Newcastle and also Clinical Advisor to the Integrated Covid Hub North East (including one of the high throughput SARS-COV-2 PCR testing Lighthouse Laboratories).

Sheila is the Newcastle laboratory clinical lead for the Infectious Diseases in Pregnancy Screening programme and has a specific interest in viral infections in pregnancy and in children.

David Wells

Chief Executive, IBMS

In June 2021, David became the IBMS Chief Executive following leading the NHS England and Improvement Pathology consolidation programme as Head of Pathology for NHS England and NHS Improvement. He led England’s pathology services in the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring that NHS laboratories were able to respond to the national need in standing up the required testing at pace and scale.

For three years running, David was recognised as being one of the top 100 most powerful advocates for pathology in the global community by The Pathologist magazine (2018, 2019 and 2020). 

Previously, as an elected IBMS Council Member for the London region, David was chair of the Membership and Marketing Committee. He has also represented the IBMS on NICE diagnostic advisory panels, and various national forums, including an observer on the Royal College of Pathologist Council and in the Parliamentary and Science committee.

In October 2020, the Royal College of Pathologists awarded David Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his contribution to pathology.

Jamie West

Biochemistry Manager, North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Leonie Wheeldon

Senior Biomedical Scientist Diagnostic Cytopathology , Royal Cornwall Hospital NHS Trust

Since 2004, Leonie has been actively involved in cancer related research, initially at the University of Kent and Imperial College London. The research involves Human epidermal growth factor receptor (ErbB2) location / phosphorylation, which later lead to the development of Herceptin for the treatment of breast cancer and Vertical Transmission of High Risk strains of the Human Papilloma Virus (HRHPV) using Fluorescent Resonance Energy Transfer Polymerase Chain Reaction (FRET PCR) and immunocytochemistry” which provided a great platform for future molecular research.

In 2010, she returned home to Cornwall, at that time the combination of medical technological advances resulting in the implementation of targeted, minimally invasive sampling methods, in addition to rapid pharmaceutical developments, led to personalised treatments and immunotherapies becoming more available. The requirement of extensive and complex testing requirements on smaller diagnostic samples was apparent.

In addition, resource pressures on NHS services and requirements for reduction in referral to treatment times since 2010 inspired the team to implement innovative pathway focused solutions from laboratory services at RCHT. Studies focused on rapid on-site evaluation (ROSE) performed by scientists in the clinical setting, provided a standardised clinically effective, reproducible methodology for Lung, pancreatic, mediastinal, oesophageal, head and neck lymph nodes, salivary glands, liver, adrenal and gastrointestinal tract sampling.

This real-time adequacy assessment eliminates the need for more invasive or repeat procedures by ensuring sufficient cell yield is obtained to conduct all the tests required for ancillary and molecular testing. ROSE together with on-site sophisticated molecular techniques effectively streamlines the patient pathway by reducing the referral to treatment time and reducing waiting list pressures, resulting in cost reduction for healthcare trusts and improved patient outcomes.

As the “smaller sample paradigm” continues to progress the cytopathology services must embrace these changes to support the diagnostic requirements needed for further targeted and highly specialised prognostic and therapeutic biomarkers.

Active trials run by the department such as the KEBI-CYTO trial, are validating the use of smaller optimally preserved cell samples and blood plasma samples to ensure that Cornwall patients continue to receive advanced diagnostic services. I am passionate about cytopathology services and I’m motivated further by working collaboratively with the great and enthusiastic clinical, management, laboratory and research and development teams at RCHT.

Each area shares the fundamental goals of improving patient pathways and care outcomes and brings their wealth of knowledge and expertise to the fore. She believes this is the key to successful research and innovation and she's delighted to be part of it.

Leonie's IBMS qualifications include HSD cytopathology, DEP non gyanecological cytopathology and ASD non gynaecological cytopathology - Since 2020, she has been an executive on the British Association of Cytopathology.

Dr Rachel Wheeler

Director of the Protein Reference Unit , St George's Hospital, South West London Pathology

Rachel is Director of the Protein Reference Unit at St George's Hospital in London, where she has worked since 2005. She moved from a research career in neuroimmunology to train as a Clinical Scientist at St George's Hospital and Great Ormond Street Hospital. Rachel has a specialist interest in cryoglobulins, and also campervans.

Dr Graeme Wild

Clinical Scientist, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Graeme is Clinical Scientist in Immunology and Deputy Director Supra-Regional Protein Reference Unit Sheffield. He is UKAS assessor and HCPC registration assessor.

Martin Wilkinson

Pathology Martin Wilkinson, Director of Product Introduction, Strategy and User Adoption, InterSystems

No bio provided

Ailsa Willens

Programme Director for Pathology, London Region, NHS England & Improvement

Ailsa is the Programme Director for Pathology within the London Region of NHS England and NHS Improvement. Over the last two years she has led work across London to support the rollout of COVID-19 Testing; our response to major supply chain interruption within Pathology as well as the strategic development of Services across London.

She works closely with the London Pathology Leadership and Clinical oversight Group which brings together Clinical and Operational Leads from each of London's Pathology Networks and ICS Leads to support delivery of both national and regional priorities. Ailsa's background is in transformation and turnaround of services across the NHS.

Greg Williams

Clinical Liaison Biomedical Scientist, Morriston Hospital, Swansea Bay University Hospital

Greg is a Clinical Liaison Biomedical Scientist for the Swansea Bay University Health Board based at Morriston Hospital. In this new developing role, he provides liaison between the laboratories, wards and various orthopaedic, vascular and trauma teams.

Greg has a special interest in wound infections and management, and has recently introduced a clinical liaison ward round utilising the ‘Consultant Connect app’. He initially trained in diagnostic medical microbiology at St Thomas’ hospital and has over twenty years of experience working in various microbiology departments of hospitals throughout the UK, holding posts of senior BMS and deputy operational manager.

Greg is a Fellow member of the IBMS and is part of a working group together with the IBMS looking to develop a Diploma of Expert practice specifically for Microbiology. He is also a qualified osteopath and has previously established and run an osteopathic clinic for 10 years.

David Wilson

Deputy Chair, IBMS Immunology Scientific Advisory Panel

David was the Department Head of H&I at the Aberdeen Transfusion Centre, Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service from 1992 to 2009. He moved to NHS Grampian in 2009 taking up the position of Immunology Manager and latterly Pathology Manager until retiring from this post in 2019.

David worked with UKAS as a Technical Assessor until October 2021. He is currently Deputy Chair of the IBMS Immunology Scientific Advisory Panel.

Allan Wilson

IBMS President,

Allan Wilson is the IBMS President 2020-21 and has been a council member since 2013. He started his career as a trainee in 1976 and spent more than 40 years working laboratories across the globe. He trained in Glasgow and is an expert in cytology. Today, Allan works as Lead Clinician for the Scottish Cervical Screening Programme at Monklands Hospital, where he has been based since 1988.

Allan has also worked in senior level management for 25 years and is a cellular pathology network manager and cervical cytology consortium manager for Scotland.

He has lectured across Europe, in addition to New Zealand and Africa, which gives him a unique perspective to international laboratory practices.

Michael Wiltshire

Component Development Laboratory Manager , NHSBT

Michael joined NHSBT in 2003, becoming the Component Development Laboratory (CDL) Manager in January 2014. He has extensive experience in many aspects of blood component collection, manufacture and storage, having led numerous projects working on red cell, platelet and plasma components.

Michael is responsible for the management and delivery of CDL’s programme of Research and Development, overseeing the operational aspects of projects, including ensuring compliance with relevant regulations and guidelines. He is currently involved in a number of key projects including plasma for the manufacture of medicines and dried plasma.

Daniella Winterburn

Lead Clinical Scientist - Haemostasis , South Tees Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

No bio provided

Dr Marion Wood

NHS England & Improvement

No bio provided

Andrew Wood

General Manager, BioConnections

No bio provided

Jane Woods

Scheme Co-Ordinator/ Technical Expert , UK NEQAS Cellular Pathology Technique

Jane has 36 years of experience in Histopathology, 29 years of which were at a senior or management level within Cellular Pathology in Nottingham. She is proud to have been one of the Biomedical Scientists involved in the pilot for BMS extended roles in dissection and until 2014 was dissecting RCPath category A-E specimens.

Jane lectured at higher education level and has worked at a hospital in the private sector delivering bespoke technical support for Mohs surgery since 2002. She has been a specialist Renal, Mohs and General Scheme assessor of Cellular Pathology Techniques for UK NEQAS since 2009 and in 2014, was appointed as the national co-ordinator for the Renal Biopsy Pathology Scheme.

Having retired from her NHS role, Jane is now able to provide additional technical support to UK NEQAS for CPT and was involved in the pilot for the Tissue Diagnostics Scheme, which was implemented in May 2021.

Dr Claire Wright

Lecturer in Biosciences, York St. John University

Dr Claire has been teaching at York St John University since 2019. Her specialist area is in medical microbiology and teaches this subject at all levels across the degree programme. Alongside her teaching commitments, she is the placement supervisor for students applying for and entering a Biomedical Scientist placement in an accredited laboratory.

Claire has a keen interest in engaging students from the start of their degree in the placement process and encourages them to be curious about career opportunities. In their first year, students attend placement workshops to inform them of the procedures for applying for a placement as a Biomedical Scientist. In the second year, the students undergo a proactive process of careers sessions, covering letter, CV and interview preparation. Working closely with NHS colleagues, she leads the students to the final stages and a potential offer of a training year an IBMS accredited laboratory. Claire continues supporting the students through their placement year and works closely with their workplace supervisor to ensure that the training year runs smoothly from all perspectives. Many times this involves pastoral support for the student or support for the training provider when necessary.

As the training year comes to the end, Claire works with students to reintegrate them back into university. Claire is committed to supporting students in both their academic endeavours and in being ambitious for their futures, exploring employment opportunities and understanding the vital role of Biomedical Scientists.

Dr Patrick Yong

Consultant Immunologist, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust

Dr Patrick works as an immunology consultant in a networked service providing care for people in Surrey and Berkshire. He qualified in medicine from Bristol and trained in clinical immunology in London.

Dr Patrick has a particular interest in the organisation of care for people with HAE and has helped establish a UK network for clinicians with an interest in HAE. He hopes that this will contribute to further continuous improvement in the care of people with HAE.

Francis Yongblah

Laboratory Manager and Higher Specialist Scientist Trainee (HSST) Clinical Scientist , Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust

Francis is the Laboratory Manager and Higher Specialist Scientist Trainee (HSST), Clinical Scientist in Microbiology at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH). He has worked at GOSH for nearly 10 years. Before that he worked at Basildon Hospital were he trained as a Biomedical Scientist.

Francis has vast experience in clinical microbiology, leadership, management and quality management. In addition, he is heavily involved in diagnostic research at GOSH and translating this into routine diagnostics, presenting research at several UK conferences and abroad.

Francis has a vast interest in rapid diagnostic to improve antimicrobial stewardship. In his spare time, he likes to play the violin, piano and saxophone. He is a member of the London Gay Symphony Orchestra and regularly works to promote equality and diversity within the NHS and healthcare science.

Francis is hoping to lead the IBMS in marching in London Pride 2022 which will be the first time that the institute will have marched at Pride.