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Find out more about the Infection Clinical Research Hub (ICRH) team.
About the ICRH
In 2008, Infection Clinical Research Hub was established under the guidance of Professor Mahdad Noursadeghi. Originally called CIRT (Clinical Infection Research team) included 2 research nurses and a research coordinator. Our team has gradually expanded and currently employs five research nurses, each leading on one or more studies.
Our team supports research in Infectious Diseases involving patients and healthy volunteers at University College London and NHS Trusts in North Central and East London. We support Principle Investigators to obtain regulatory approvals and support research governance processes, undertake participant recruitment, and the collection of biological samples or clinical data.
ICRH fully engages with the sustainable goals of the United Nations to improve patient care/ outcomes on a global scale.
The ICRH team
Mahdad Noursadeghi
Professor of Infectious Diseases
m.noursadeghi@ucl.ac.uk
Mahdad Noursadeghi is Professor of Infectious Diseases at UCL, Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases. and Acute Medicine at UCLH and at Whittington Hospital NHS Trusts, and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London. He trained in Medicine at Guy’s & St Thomas’ hospitals and undertook specialty training in Infectious Diseases at Northwick Park Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital, and UCLH. He undertook a PhD in the Immunology of Sepsis at Imperial College and now leads a research group, Innate2Adaptive, in the Division of Infection & Immunity at UCL.
Michelle Berkeley
Senior Clinical Research Nurse
m.berkeley@ucl.ac.uk
Michelle started at UCL in September 2015 on the ARISE (Anti-inflammatory Response in Immune Senescence of the Elderly) multi-study project. Her first taste of research came in 2011 while working as a practice nurse with Professor Irwin Nazareth on various studies within General Practice. Michelle qualified as an RGN in 1998, Teaching and Assessing in 1999, and Advanced Dip in Women’s Health and Contraception in 2009 at Middlesex University.
Michelle has a very diverse clinical background from various roles within primary care settings from district nursing, advisor for the older person, practice nursing, and primary care research nurse. Through these roles, she ran different nurse-led clinics such as diabetes, wound care, travel medicine, childhood immunisations, sexual health, women's health, and contraception.
At present, Michelle oversees the operational day-to-day running of the team and works with various academics with regulatory processes. Michelle is currently working on TCV-BCG study - identification and validation of the determinants of variation in T cell immunity with Dr Shaw-Wise and assisting in all current studies within the team.
Michelle Berin
Clinical Research Nurse
m.berin@ucl.ac.uk
Michelle graduated in the Philippines in March 1997 and has been working as a nurse since 1998. She came to UK in 2001 and has gained lots of experience working in surgical gastrointestinal setting, and acute medicine at UCLH.
Michelle’s research career started over four years ago at UCL after suffering from a back injury in 2013. She is passionate about infection research from seeing how devastating it is for patients and their loved ones. Infection is costing a significant amount of money to treat patients and also prolongs their hospital stay.
For Michelle research has different levels of challenges in a variety of aspects but most of all it is great to have a chance to meet new people and make new friends in different departments. Research has always had an impact on patient care and Michelle is proud to be part of it! Presently Michelle is focusing on various TB studies.
Kimberlee Gunn
Clinical Research Nurse
k.gunn@ucl.ac.uk
Kimberlee is a registered nurse with an MSc in Global Health and a passion for research. She trained at the University of Tasmania and first specialised in Emergency care with a PgC.
Her first experience of research was in clinical trials in the Emergency Department. Kimberlee now works primarily on TB studies within the team, alongside work clinically in Migrant Health.
Frelyn Ocampo
Clinical Research Nurse
f.ocampo@ucl.ac.uk
Frelyn is an experienced senior staff nurse in general surgery at UCLH for 14 years. She joined the Cancer Clinical Trials Unit in 2016, where she worked on Uro-Surgical prostate, bladder, and GI Translational Studies such as DETECT-1, DETECT-2 - a prospective multi-center observational study to validate the UroMark assay to detect bladder cancer from urine samples, HIVEC-II , CALIBER and PHOTO trials. From there Frelyn progressed to coordinator of Head and Neck Cancer studies, in particular, EACH, ION, NIMRAD studies.
Frelyn wanted to take on a different research focus and decided to move to UCL in December 2018, where she is now leading on NIHR BioAid RTB study, looking at Adult Infectious Diseases.