People

The INHALE project has two chief investigators, a project manager, and a range of research staff to deliver work packages across its five-year lifespan.

The INHALE project is led by two chief investigators:

Dr Vanya Gant, University College London
Professor David Livermore, University of East Anglia

The project is overseen on a daily basis by the INHALE Project Manager, Dr Virve Enne, University College London. The project plan is delivered through five Work Packages (WP) which run over the project's five-year tenure. Each WP has a designated leader to oversee its processes during the allocated time period.

Two main INHALE sites - London and Norwich - harbour our primary research staff who deal with the daily running of the technical aspects of INHALE. These aspects include, but are not limited to: patient recruitment (in liaison with ICU research nurses and diagnostic laboratory staff); operation and troubleshooting of the diagnostic platforms under scrutiny; data acquisition; and entry into the INHALE database.

Steering commitee

The INHALE research programme is overseen and advised by an independent programme steering committee (PSC) whose membership is listed below.

Prof. Paul Dark - Chair and Expert in Intensive Care Medicine
Ms. Susan Bennett - PPI representative
Dr Andre Charlett - Expert in Statistics
Prof. Paul Aveyard - Expert in Behavioural Science
Prof. Robert Masterton - Expert in Clinical Microbiology

Work package leads

WP1 Lead - Dr Justin O'Grady, University of East Anglia

I gained my BSc in Microbiology, my MSc (Res) in infectious diseases molecular diagnostics and my PhD in molecular diagnosis of bacterial pathogens in food all at the National University of Ireland Galway (NUIG). My PhD research focused on real-time PCR based detection of Listeria monocytogenes and related species in multiple food types using a novel bacterial diagnostic target. I continued my research in the food microbiology sector, with a two-year post-doc at NUIG, but with a focus on lab-on-a-chip technology and isothermal amplification based diagnostics. This was followed by a two year stint in industry (Beckman Coulter) developing real-time PCR based molecular diagnostics assays for infectious diseases including Mycobacterium tuberculosis. During my time at Beckman Coulter, I developed a strong interest in tuberculosis (TB) research, which inspired me to move back into academia and take up a post-doc position at University College London on TB diagnostics. I was lucky enough to spend time in southern Africa while at UCL where I developed a passion for infectious diseases focused Global Health research. In January 2013, I was appointed Lecturer in Medical Microbiology at UEA where I continue my research on microbial pathogen molecular diagnostics with the aim of translating this research broadly, in different sectors and diseases, to maximise community/patient benefit.

WP2 Lead - Professor David Livermore, University of East Anglia

Prof. David Livermore is co-PI on INHALE. He worked at the London Hospital Medical College from 1980-1997, then joined the Public Health Laboratory Service (now Public Health England), becoming Director of its Antibiotic Resistance Monitoring and Reference Laboratory until 2011. He was then appointed Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of East Anglia, but still has with Public Health England. Prof Livermore has published over 400 papers on the evolution and epidemiology of antibiotic resistance, particularly b-lactamases. He is a member of the UK Government's Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare Associated Infections Advisory Committee.

WP3 Lead - Dr Vanya Gant, University College London

I am interested in multiple aspects of infection control in the hospital environment, including the development and use of rapid point-of-care diagnostics, genomic approaches to transmission chain tracking, health informatics, and hospital design and hygiene practices.

WP4 Lead - Professor Robert Horne, University College London

Rob Horne is Professor of Behavioural Medicine at University College London. After 10 years as clinical pharmacist in the NHS, Rob undertook a PhD in health psychology at Kings' College London followed by a 20-year programme of research in behavioural medicine. This has resulted in 233 peer-reviewed publications, supported by £66m in research funding. His research focuses on the role of psychological and behavioural factors in explaining variation in response to treatment. His current interests centre on the development of interventions to support engagement with essential treatments and on optimising the non-specific effects (placebo and nocebo components) of medicines. A key focus is on understanding patient and public representations of illness and treatment and how representations influence self-regulation in illness and treatment outcomes. He is UCL academic Lead for CASMI and a Founding Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and Fellow of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine.

WP5 Lead - David Turner, University of East Anglia

David Turner is the Health Economics lead for INHALE. David has 20 years' experience of working as a health economist in academia. He has worked extensively with clinical colleagues to estimate the cost-effectiveness of a wide range of health care interventions. His role in INHALE is to lead the health economics component. This will involve designing an economic evaluation alongside the proposed trial in WP3 as well as building an economic model from a variety of sources, including data collected as part of WP1 and WP2.

WP6 Lead - Dr Virve Enne, University College London

Dr Virve Enne, University College London, is the overall manager of the INHALE Programme. She co-ordinates day-to-day research activities and oversees the London based-sites and UCL-based laboratory testing. She has over 15 years' experience of microbiology and antimicrobial resistance research. She obtained her PhD investigating the persistence of antibiotic resistance from Barts and The London in 2001, then completed AMR-related post-doctoral work at the University of Bristol and QMUL before moving to UCL in 2013. Vicky is a member of the Editorial Board for Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.

Co-applicants

Dr David Brealey, University College London Hospitals

David is clinical advisor on the INHALE management committee and the local PI at the UCLH site. He is a Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He is the Trust lead for Critical Care, Anaesthesia and Emergency Medicine Research and National Lead for 3 International trials. His earlier research was the first to demonstrate mitochondrial dysfunction as a potential cause of sepsis induced organ failure in patients. He now leads a successful Critical Care clinical trials team which are recognised as one of the highest performing teams within the UK and capable at performing on a global level. They have run over 30 clinical trials, specialising in early phase interventions in areas such as sepsis and ARDS with global firsts, high recruitment rates and data quality. However, he feels the lack of progress in this area has been hampered by the diagnostic uncertainty that the clinician and researcher frequently face. Thus his work now concentrates on improving patient monitoring, detecting infection and the associated pathogen with significantly higher confidence and speed than is currently possible.

Dr Julie Barber, University College London

Julie Barber is a co-applicant and lead Statistician for the INHALE project working with statistical colleagues at UCL and the Norwich CTU. She is a Senior Lecturer in medical statistics in the department of statistical science at UCL and a member of the Biostatistics Group within the UCL/UCLH Research Support Centre. She has extensive experience of both randomised trials and large epidemiological studies and works collaboratively on studies in a variety of clinical areas.

Professor Andrew Hayward, University College London

Andrew trained in medicine at St Thomas' Hospital London, during which time he had minimal interest in epidemiology or public health. Following initial clinical training, he undertook Public Health training and specialisation in infectious disease epidemiology and control including training at the Health Protection Agency and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Andrew worked as a Lecturer in Public Health Medicine at the University of Nottingham moving to University College London to develop the UCL Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology. His MD focussed on understanding the impact of GP antibiotic prescribing on the development of antimicrobial resistance. Subsequent work has included research into prevention of influenza in elderly care homes, the community epidemiology of seasonal and pandemic influenza to inform control, evaluation of the NHS Clean Your Hands Campaign and the social determinants of tuberculosis informing the development of enhanced services for homeless people, drug users and prisoners.

Professor Ann Marie Swart, University of East Anglia

Professor Ann Marie Swart is the Norwich Clinical Trials Unit (NCTU) Director. She is a clinical epidemiologist and is accredited in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics. She started her career in clinical trials in HIV and cancer at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit where as Senior Clinical Epidemiologist she led a programme of international trials in gynae cancer. The NCTU is an accredited trials unit with expertise in the design and analysis of clinical trials and epidemiological studies, randomisation, data management and clinical trial operations underpinned by a quality management system. It has a broad portfolio of trials in complex interventions, drug and device trials with over 30 predominantly NIHR funded current research projects.

Professor Nigel Klein, Great Ormond Street Hospital

Nigel is a Professor and Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases & Immunology at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, London, and the Institute of Child Health, UCL. He trained at UCL, obtaining degrees in Anatomy and in Medicine. He worked in the three London centres specialising in Paediatric Infectious Diseases before completing his formal training at ICH/GOSH. His main research interests include pediatric sepsis, meningitis, HIV, the role of infection in vascular disease, hospital acquired infections.

Dr Tim Leary, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital

Dr Helen Williams, Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital

Professor Mark Peters, Great Ormond Street Hospital

Research staff

London-based Research Staff

Seyid Aydin
Dewi Owen
Federico Ricciardi (statistics)
Natalie Bidad (WP4)
Yogini Jani (WP4)
Brenda Nomamiukor (to Aug 2017)
Ria Dayal (WP4, to Feb 18)

Norwich-based Research Staff

Ms. Charlotte Russell
Dr. Adam Wagner (WP5)
Dr Hollian Richardson (to Jul 18)
Dr Rossella Baldan (to Nov 17)