Scientific Staff | NIHR SRMRC - Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre

Professor Janet Lord

brownda — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:22:00 +0000

Following her doctoral degree at Aston University, Janet Lord became a research fellow in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at the University of Oxford. In 1985 she joined the University of Birmingham as a research fellow in immunology and began her own research group following the award of a Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 1989. She was appointed to a chair in Immune Cell Biology in 2004.

Professor Lord is now director of the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing at Birmingham University. She is also director of the MRC-ARUK Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research and a theme lead in two NIHR funded centres: the NIHR Birmingham BRC and the NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre. Her primary research focus is in the effect of ageing upon immune function and how this limits the ability of older adults to resolve inflammation and predisposes them to chronic inflammatory disease such as rheumatoid arthritis. She also researches the link between chronic systemic inflammation and physical frailty in old age. In this context Professor Lord has a particular interest in the role played by stress (physical and psychological) and the altered HPA axis in modulating immunity and frailty in old age and following an injury such as hip fracture. More recently she has begun to research the inflammatory response to major trauma and how this varies with age and influences patient outcomes, including sepsis, multi-organ failure and scarring. In 2013 she was awarded the Lord Cohen of Birkenhead medal for her outstanding research in human ageing by the British Society for Research on Ageing. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015.

Professor Liam Grover

brownda — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:22:07 +0000

Prof. Grover is a biomaterials scientist whose research focuses on designing materials that enhance the tissue regeneration process. He studied for both his undergraduate degree (biomedical materials science) and his PhD on the development of a novel bioresponsive ceramic (under the supervision of Jake Barralet) at the University of Birmingham, UK. On completion of his PhD, Prof. Grover spent two years working at McGill University, Montreal, where he was awarded a CIHR Skeletal Health Scholarship to study the role of a range of proteins and condensed phosphates in the formation of minerals. He returned to the University of Birmingham in 2006 to establish a research group in the School of Chemical Engineering. In the time since, Prof. Grover has held funding from a multitude of funding bodies, including: the EPSRC, BBSRC, MRC, NC3Rs, the Wellcome Trust, Orthopaedics Research UK, the MoD, the EU, the Drummond Foundation and the NIHR, as well as numerous industrial partners. Since 2006, he has been involved in raising more than £20m of research funding that has provided the University of Birmingham with an exceptional infrastructure for the development of medical technologies and directs the Healthcare Technology Institute located within the Institute for Translational Medicine. He has published more than 150 peer reviewed publications, 4 book chapters, has been an inventor on eight patent applications and has taken three medical technologies to the point of clinical trial. He was made a Fellow of the Institute of Materials at 30 and was made one of the youngest full Professors in the history of the University of Birmingham at 32.

Professor Mel Calvert

brownda — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:22:22 +0000

Melanie Calvert qualified with a BSc (First Class Hons) in Biochemistry from the University of Birmingham in 1997. She was awarded a Wellcome Trust Prize PhD studentship and graduated in 2001. Since then she has continued to work at the University with expertise in clinical trials, epidemiology, trials methodology and patient-reported outcomes.

Her work has included the development of the CONSORT-PRO extension published JAMA 2013 (cited over 500 times, to-date) for which she was awarded the ISOQOL Emerging Leader Award. More recent work includes publications on the conduct of PRO assessment within trials (PLOS One), issues surrounding ‘PRO Alerts’ (JAMA viewpoint, PLOS One), PROs in Big data (JRSM) and maximising the impact of patient reported outcome assessment for patients and society (BMJ). Professor Calvert has worked on a number of clinical trials, most notably the Cardiac REychronisation in Heart Failure Trial (which demonstrated significant improvements in symptoms, quality of life and survival in patients receiving CRT). More recently she has led the statistical analysis of the HINGE trial, published in Circulation, the HYPER Trial (Eur J Cardiothorac Surg) and the ROSSINI trial (BMJ).

Professor Calvert has led (as PI) a number of successful epidemiological studies assessing the management of diabetes and heart failure in primary care. Currently Professor Calvert is leading the development of a core outcome set within the NIHR funded PARTNERS2 programme grant, outcome selection/trials methodology within the NIHR funded Bluebelle, Pegasus, IMPRESS-AF and RATE-AF studies, the development of the SPIRIT-PRO extension (Lancet comment/funder Macmillan), ePRO development within routine practice (funded by Health Foundation/NIHR and charities) and an Innovate UK grant to assess patient reported outcomes in advanced therapies.

In addition, Professor Calvert is the Director of the newly formed BHP (Birmingham Health Partners) Centre for Regulatory Science and Innovation (CRSI). Established in 2020, CRSI will support the development and delivery of novel therapeutics and medical devices in the UK, through advanced regulatory standards and tools.

Also Professor Calvert has lead on the CONSORT-AI (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials-Artificial Intelligence) extension which is a new reporting guideline for clinical trials evaluating interventions with an AI component. It was developed in parallel with its companion statement for clinical trial protocols: SPIRIT-AI (Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials-Artificial Intelligence).

Professor Deborah Falla

brownda — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:22:28 +0000

Since April 2016, Professor Falla is Chair in Rehabilitation Science and Physiotherapy at the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK. Professor Falla is also the Director of the Centre of Precision Rehabilitation for Spinal Pain
(CPR Spine) which was established at the University of Birmingham in 2017 following a ~£1M investment. She is a Senior PI for the NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre (SRMRC) and is a Senior PI and theme lead for Re-enablement and
Rehabilitation for the NIHR – MedTech and In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative (MIC).

Her research utilises state of the art electrophysiological measures to evaluate the control of human movement and how it is affected or adapted in response to various states (e.g. pain, injury, fatigue, and training). Her research interests also include optimising management of
musculoskeletal conditions with a particular interest in spinal pain. She has published over 190 papers in international, peer-reviewed journals, more than 300 conference papers/abstracts including 38 keynote lectures.

Professor Falla acts as an Associate Editor for Musculoskeletal Science & Practice (formerly Manual Therapy), the Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology and IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. Between 2016-2018 she was President of the International Society of Electrophysiology and Kinesiology (ISEK).

Professor Nick Loman

brownda — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:22:37 +0000

Nick works as Professor of Microbial Genomics and Bioinformatics in the Institute for Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham. Following a PhD in comparative bacterial genomics with Mark Pallen, he has developed research interests in microbial genomics and metagenomics for a broad range of bacterial pathogens. Nick spends much of his time tracking developments in new sequencing technologies with an eye to applying them to a range of medical and biological problems.

Nick leads CLIMB COVID-19, led by the University of Birmingham and Cardiff University, which is a big data project currently supporting the COVID-19 Genomics Consortium (COG-UK), set up to deliver large scale, rapid sequencing of the causes of COVID-19.

Professor George Gkoutos

brownda — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:22:43 +0000

A biochemist by training, George was initially involved in the field of Computational Biology following an MSc degree by research on correlated mutations analysis on G-Protein coupled receptors, which involved modelling class A G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) and drug design. He then proceeded to obtain a PhD in the areas of Chemoinformatics/Bioinformatics at Imperial College of London. After the completion of his PhD, he was awarded an MRC Career Development Fellowship at MRC Harwell, Oxford. In 2005, he joined the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University and was part of various international consortia aimed at facilitating the translation of basic research findings to applications that aimed at the identification of the genetic underpinnings of disease mechanisms. In 2012, he became the head of the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Group at Aberystwyth University, an interdisciplinary group of bioinformatics researchers, working at the interface between computing, biology and medical applications and crossing the Department of Computer Science and the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS). George maintains an Aberystwyth University honorary Professorship in Bioinformatics.

In September 2015, George joined the University of Birmingham as the Chair of Clinical Bioinformatics. Professor Gkoutos splits his time between the Centre of Computational Biology, the College of Medical and Dental Sciences, the Institute of Translational Medicine and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

Dr Paul Harrison

brownda — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:23:03 +0000

Paul Harrison has over 35 years of experience in research. His first degree was in Biochemistry from the University of Surrey in 1981, specialising in Toxicology. After working as a Clinical Biochemist for 2 years, he started his research career in Haemostasis and Thrombosis at St. Thomas’s Hospital Medical School in the Coagulation Research Department and obtained his PhD in 1988 from the University of London. After 10 years at St.Thomas’s, he then became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oklahoma before returning as a Lecturer at the Haemostasis Research group at University College London in 1995. In 2001 he became a clinical scientist at the Oxford Haemophilia and Thrombosis Centre. In 2013 he was appointed as the Scar Free Foundation Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham. Paul has now published over 180 papers and book chapters. He is a Past-President of the British Society of Haemostasis amp; Thrombosis (BSHT) and a Past-Chairman of the International Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis (ISTH) Platelet Physiology Scientific and standardization committee. In 2010 Paul was featured as one of the top 100 healthcare scientists in the UK by the Department of Health.

Dr Artemis Stamboulis

brownda — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:23:16 +0000

Following her PhD, Artemis worked in the Department of Materials Science at Imperial College as a Marie Curie Research Fellow until 2003. Following this she accepted a position as Lecturer in Nanotechnology in NIBEC, University of Ulster. In 2005, she moved to the University of Birmingham and became a Birmingham Fellow. In 2021 she became a Reader in Biomaterials.

Artemis’ main research interests are in the microstructural characterisation of materials for biomedical applications as well as in multifunctional materials with emphasis in orthopaedic antimicrobial materials. She has published over 70 research papers in international scientific journals. Artemis has an active research group and has successfully supervised over 50 postgraduate students. She has recently coordinated a 3-year Marie Sklodowska-Curie RISE programme (NEXT-3D). The programme focused on the development of Materials, Processing and Characterisation to produce multifunctional coatings (devices) for maxillofacial and orthopaedic applications using 3D laser printing and sintering. Artemis is currently one of the partners of a Marie Curie ITN DOC-3D printing that aims to develop appropriate 3D processing methodologies for ceramics and Artemis’ work focuses on the 3D printing of multicomponent ceramic implants for orthopaedics as well as the modelling of 3D processes (including heat transfer in ceramics) and post-processes (especially for DLP 3D printing techniques). Artemis also completed successfully a Marie Curie IF project (NOVA) that aimed to the development of an antimicrobial ceramic composite powder with interesting biological properties based on lanthanide doped glasses and hydroxyapatite and is currently researching their potential to be used for direct 3D laser printing. Artemis is intensively researching antimicrobial peptides and the development of antimicrobial medical devices mainly for orthopaedic applications and very recently in the field of cancer research. She holds two patents one in an antimicrobial medical surface and a second in a cell-penetrating peptide for ophthalmology applications.

Dr Jon Hazeldine

brownda — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:23:28 +0000

Dr Hazeldine is currently a Research Fellow working on the acute response to major trauma theme under the tutelage of Professor Janet Lord. Jon obtained a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Human Biology in 2007, a Master’s degree (MSc) in Immunology in 2008 and obtained his PhD at the University of Birmingham in 2013. During his doctoral research he investigated the impact of age on human immune function. Dr Hazeldine has published over 25 research articles, review papers and book chapters on the topics of the immune system, trauma and ageing.

Dr Animesh Acharjee

brownda — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 11:23:35 +0000

Dr Acharjee earned his PhD from Wageningen University in statistical machine learning applied on omics analysis. After his PhD, he moved to Lyon for his post-doctoral study with Synergie Lyon Cancer Centre, as a statistician. After his post-doctoral study, he was offered a position with BASF Plant Science, Gent, Belgium. Before joining the University of Birmingham and Queen Elizabeth Hospital, he worked at the University of Cambridge, focusing on metabolic driven diseases like obesity, Type 2 diabetes and liver cancer, using high throughput transcriptomics, metabolomics and lipidomics technologies. His research interests include high dimensional data analysis, predictive biomarker discovery, quantitative genetics and network biology. He has been granted several International fellowships from many organizations such as International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB), Newton-Katip Çelebi Fund, São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), British Council, and Dutch Government.