Professor David Jayne – Clinical Director

David Jayne is Clinical Director for the Surgical MedTech Co-operative. He is Professor of Surgery at the University of Leeds and Honorary Consultant Surgeon at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He is a NIHR Research Professor and brings expertise in the identification of unmet needs related to colorectal disease, the development of surgical technologies through interdisciplinary working, and clinical translation through early and late phase clinical trials.

His clinical interests include minimally invasive and robotic colorectal surgery. His research interests include the development, application, and evaluation of new technologies for surgical application. In 2012 he was awarded an NIHR Research Professorship to promote the translation of novel technologies into clinical practice for patient benefit. He is CI on several NIHR portfolio clinical trials:

• NIHR HTA FIAT (anal fistula plug v surgeon’s preference)
• NIHR EME ROLARR (robotic v laparoscopic surgery for rectal cancer)
• NIHR EME GliSten (next generation fluorescent lymph node mapping in colon cancer)
• NHIR HTA Fenix (magnetic anal sphincter for faecal incontinence)

Professor Giles Toogood – HPB Lead

Giles Toogood is Professor of Hepatobiliary Surgery at Leeds University and has been a Consultant at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds since 1998. He trained at Oxford University and completed his hepatobiliary and transplant training in Oxford, Cambridge and Australia. He also completed his Doctor of Medicine at Oxford University. He performs liver cancer and liver transplantation surgery and works in one of the largest Units in Europe.

He has published over 160 peer reviewed publications and has supervised several post graduate fellows towards PhDs and MDs.
Giles is currently Principal external examiner for Oxford University Medical School and examines for the Intercollegiate Specialty Board in General Surgery and also for the Union Européenne des Médecins Spécialistes in HPB Surgery.

He was on the NICE guidelines group for gallbladder disease. He is President Elect of the Association of Upper Gastrointestinal Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland and was the Founder President of the Great Britain and Ireland Hepatopancreatobiliary Association, (2009). He is also a member of the European and African HPB Association Training Committee.

Giles played cricket for Worcestershire CCC between 1978 and 1982. He played first class cricket and rugby for Oxford University in the 1980s and played Minor Counties Cricket for both Shropshire and Cambridgeshire. He is currently a member of the MCC main Committee and captained MCC on two major tours.

Professor Julian Scott – Vascular Lead

Professor Scott trained in Leicester, Peterborough, Bristol, Exeter, Gloucester and Melbourne and was appointed as a consultant vascular surgeon in November 1993.
He has a large NHS practice based at the LGI and takes part in the major trauma centre. He was appointed as an honorary professor of vascular surgery at the University of Leeds in 2004 and manages a large academic research group, focused on abdominal aortic aneurysms, based within the Leeds Institute of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Medicine.
He has extensive experience of the management of arterial and venous disease.
He works closely with colleagues in interventional radiology, and offers minimally invasive approaches to arterial and venous disease.
He is an advisory member of the BHF, Past Chairman of the European Board of Vascular Surgery and the current FRCS Vascular Examination Board and the lead for Academic Foundation and INSPIRE at the University of Leeds.
He is also President Elect of the Union Européenne des Medécins Spécialistes (UEMS) Section and Board of Vascular Surgery and a Past-President of the Vascular Society of GB and Ireland (2012-13).

Mr Aaron Quyn – Deputy Director

Aaron Quyn is Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of Leeds. He obtained his MB ChB from the University of Edinburgh in 2001 and PhD in cell biology from the University of Dundee. He was clinical Lecturer to Professor Bob Steele at the University of Dundee until 2016 developing an interest in Bowel Cancer Screening. He undertook fellowships in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Sydney and St James’s Hospital Leeds. He has a clinical interest in locally advanced primary rectal cancer and recurrent pelvic disease and is developing a research portfolio in aligned to this interest. He was appointed Associate Clinical Professor in 2017

Professor Paul Millner – Biosensing Lead

Prof Paul Millner leads the Bionanotechnology group at the University of Leeds. The group’s interests can be divided broadly into two main themes; biosensors and nanotechnology. Biosensors are being developed against a wide range of analytes, from small molecules and ions up to whole cells. Nanotechnology encompasses research into nanoparticles for medicine and nanofibres for environmental applications. Prof Millner is keen to collaborate and has led several large EU projects which have resulted in spin-off companies. Prof Millner initially trained as a Biochemist and obtained his PhD in Plant Sciences from the University of Leeds. After around 12 years working on plant cell signalling, his research shifted direction and he is now a leader in biosensors and bionanotechnology. Prof Millner is also Director of the School of Biomedical Sciences and delivers lectures on a range of topics.

Dr Peter Culmer – Engineering Lead

Dr Peter Culmer is Associate Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Leeds, and Engineering Lead for the University’s Surgical Technologies Research Group. He is also Principal Investigator with IMPRESS, a project looking at developing technologies for incontinence management and prevention. Dr Culmer’s research looks at the development and application of new enabling technologies in medical applications, with a focus on robotics, sensing and control systems. Current projects include a robotic system for colonoscopy, the development of soft tactile sensors and characterisation and prevention of trauma in laparoscopic graspers. His PhD – from the University of Leeds – developed the computer controller for iPAM, an award-winning robotic system to improve arm function and quality of life for people with stroke. He continued this work as a post-doctoral researcher, adapting the technology to develop an instrumented walking-aid (iWA) to improve gait.

Professor Stephen Evans – Scientific Director and Nanotechnology Theme Lead

Stephen Evans is Professor of Molecular and Nanoscale Physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy. He obtained his B.Sc. in Physics from the University of London (QMC) in 1984 and his PhD in Molecular Physics from the University of Lancaster in 1988. After a post-doctoral fellowship at Imperial College, University of London, he became a visiting scientist in the Molecular and Optical Electronic Research Laboratory, Eastman Kodak, Rochester, New York. He joined the academic staff of the University of Leeds in 1991, became a Reader in 2001, and was appointed as Professor in Molecular Physics and Nanoscale Physics in 2002. He was Chairman of the School of Physics & Astronomy between 2004-2007 and currently heads the Molecular and Nanoscale Physics group.

Professor Pietro Valdastri – Engineering Theme

Pietro Valdastri is Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems at the University of Leeds, working across the School of Electronic and Electrical Engineering and the School of Mechanical Engineering. He also directs the Science and Technologies Of Robotics in Medicine (STORM) Lab, a research lab focusing on medical capsule robots for gastrointestinal endoscopy and abdominal surgery which he founded at Vanderbilt University. His research is focused on ‘medical capsule robots’, devices that leverage extreme miniaturization to enter the human body through natural orifices or small incisions, and can be designed to perform endoscopy and surgery while minimizing the invasiveness of the procedure. Professor Valdastri joined the University of Leeds in 2016 and is Director of the Institute of Robotics, Autonomous Systems and Sensing.

Dr Bethany Shinkins – Health Economics Theme Lead

Beth is an Associate Professor in the Academic Unit of Health Economics at the University of Leeds. She leads the Test Evaluation Group, a multi-disciplinary team that focuses on the economic evaluation of medical tests. She is the Methodology Lead for the NIHR Leeds In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative and the NIHR Surgical MedTech Co-operative. She has a particular interest in the early diagnosis of cancer in primary care.

She sits on the Editorial Board for the BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine Journal and is a statistical methodologist peer reviewer for the Cochrane Diagnostic Test Accuracy editorial team. She also frequently reviews NIHR Heath Technology Assessments focusing on test evaluation.

Professor Julia Brown – Clinical Trials Theme Lead

Julia is Associate Dean for Applied Health Research, Director of the Leeds Institute of Clinical Trials Research and Professor of Clinical Trials Research.  Julia is particularly interested in the design and conduct of trials within cancer, the development and analysis of patient reported outcomes and the evaluation of surgical techniques.

Dr Nicholas West – Pathology Theme Lead

He is the deputy on a Yorkshire Cancer Research programme grant ‘accelerating new treatments in clinical trials in bowel cancer’, and currently working on a number of phase II and III national and international clinical trials. These studies involve the development and validation of new molecular predictors of response to therapy, and the integration of morphology and genomics using digital pathology.

Ms. Vee Mapunde – Programme Director

Vee Mapunde is the Programme Director with responsibility for providing overall management for the programme, management of day-to-day operations and providing support for the Director and the Theme leads. She has over ten years’ experience working in clinical research at the Yorkshire and Humber Clinical Research Network, where she was Industry Manager and worked with 14 NHS organisations across West Yorkshire, to develop and implement systems to support commercially sponsored clinical research.

Ms. Sheila Boyes – Project Manager

Sheila has worked for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust since 1989, initially as a radiology assistant in the MRI department before moving into research in 2000. She holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Health Research and a NEBS Management Certificate. She worked on clinical research studies with contrast agents and MRI in radiology for eight years, before taking on a research management role in 2008. Sheila joins the MIC as a project manager and to handle the administration side

Ms Roxana Dumitrache – Project Manager

Dr Will Bolton – Director MedTech Foundation

Will is currently an Academic Foundation Doctor and NIHR Clinical Research Fellow in the Global Health Research Group Surgical Technologies in Leeds. He is taking time out of training to complete a PhD on surgical technologies for application in low and middle income countries. He is the lead for the MedTech Foundation, a student and trainee affiliation of the NIHR Surgical MedTech Cooperative. The group aims to educate and engage early career students and professionals to enhance medtech skills and promote interdisciplinary research.

Miss Candice Downey – Clinical Research Fellow

Candice Downey is a Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Leeds.  She is a registrar in General Surgery currently undertaking an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellowship.  Her interests include remote monitoring, wearable technologies and patient safety after major surgery.  She brings expertise in clinical trials, qualitative research and early economic analysis of surgical technologies.

Dr Stephen Chapman -NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow

Stephen is a NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow at University of Leeds and a Surgical Trainee in the Yorkshire & Humber Deanery. His interests include colorectal surgery, surgical recovery, clinical trials, and medical devices. He is passionate about cross-disciplinary collaboration and currently coordinates an international, student-led collaborative group (EuroSurg) across 25 countries.

Mr Ryan Mathew – Neurosurgery Lead

Ryan Mathew is an Associate Professor at the University of Leeds and an Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon at Leeds Teaching Hospitals. He obtained an MBCHB with Honours and an intercalated BSc with Honours, the latter in Clinical Sciences (Tissue Engineering) research. During his neurosurgical training at Leeds (FRCS (SN) in 2013), he undertook further basic science research (funded by CRUK) and was awarded a PhD based on Glioma Modelling using induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (iPSCs) and Cerebral Organoids. He was a co-applicant on an ~£1M Innovate UK grant based on this work. He has spent time as a Visiting Research Collaborator at the Brain Tumour Research Centre at Sickkids in Toronto, with whom he now has ongoing collaborations. He co-runs a brain tumour research lab with Dr Heiko Wurdak and is academic lead for neurosurgery. His clinical interests cover the full spectrum of brain tumours with a special focus on glioma and awake surgery. His basic science and clinical trials research interests focus primarily on brain tumours and surgical technologies/devices.

Professor Maria Lonsdale, Information & Communication Design Lead

Maria Lonsdale is a Professor of Information and Communication Design at the University of Leeds, UK, and the Deputy Head of School of Design. Maria has been a design practitioner and academic for over 20 years. Within her specialist design and research areas of Information Design and Communication Design, Maria has particular interest in Healthcare and Security. She also specialises in user-centred research methods for Design that involve users in all stages of the design and research process (including co-design, usability testing and performance testing), as well as measurement techniques such as eye-tracking alongside qualitative data collection. Within Design for Healthcare, Maria has led research projects focusing on bowel cancer prevention, detection and recovery, using information visualisation as an effective means to make information more accessible and inclusive of all levels of literacy, ages, genders, languages and cultural backgrounds

Dr Tze Wah, Senior Consultant Interventional Radiologist

Dr Tze Min Wah is a senior consultant interventional radiologist with specialist interest in both imaging and interventional oncology (IO) treatments and Honorary Clinical Associate Professor at University of Leeds since 2013. Since 2003, she has led and developed the IO programme at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust (LTHT) using various technologies e.g. radiofrequency (RFA), microwave ablation (MWA), cryoablation (CRYO) and irreversible electroporation (IRE) for a range of cancers such as liver, lung, renal, pancreas, adrenal, spleen etc. Today, Leeds is one of the leading national and international IO centres with reputable clinical outcomes and provides a full complement of innovative technologies such as RFA, MWA, CRYO and IRE for cancer treatment. She is one of the pioneers and leading interventional radiologists in the UK with a vast amount of clinical experience in renal ablative therapy. She has participated in grant funding research and lectured extensively on IO related topic in order to help to promote awareness and providing mentoring schemes to many trainees and consultants in IO on national and international levels since 2003. She is the Chief Investigator for #Hope4Liver

(https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04573881) in United Kingdom and in 2021 led the successful translation of the image guided Histotripsy treatment in liver cancer patients in UK https://www.nationalhealthexecutive.com/articles/uk-patients-liver-cancer-NHS-ultrasound-technology.

She is a passionate champion for Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) and love to inspire more women into Interventional Radiology (IR). She has strived to inspire all male and female IRs to help in closing the IR gender gap issue in Europe. She is keen to share the publication on IR Gender Gap work that she has collaborated with CIRSE in 2017 and published in CVIR 2018 titled- The Interventional Radiology (IR) Gender Gap: A Prospective Online Survey by the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29789874. In 2021, she is also the invited panellist for the Women Leader in Academic Research (WLAR) led by Prof Brad Wood at National Institute of Health (NIH) to promote women in academia. In addition, she is keen to promote education globally in IO, and had been the Visiting Professor at National Cancer Center in Singapore in 2013 and becoming the Honorary Professor at Universiti of Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia since 2017.

Dr Neville Young – Director of Enterprise & Innovation – Y&H AHSN

Coming soon….

Dr Lisa Wilde – Director of Research and External Affairs at Bowel Cancer UK

Lisa is a research scientist by training and, since leaving the lab, has spent the last 15 years leading on research management for cancer research charities. Lisa’s expertise lies in research strategy, science communications and science policy. She oversees Communications, Research, and Policy & Campaigns functions.

Helen Hoyland – Enterprise and Relationships lead at Yorkshire & Humber Academic Health Science Network

Helen leads Yorkshire & Humber AHSN Office of Life Sciences portfolio and digital operational delivery.

Michael Kipping – Innovation Lead – Biomedical Catalyst – Innovate UK

Mike Kipping is Innovation Lead (Biomedical Catalyst) at Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency and prime channel by which the UK Government incentivizes innovation in business.

Hazel Patel – PPI Lead

Coming soon..

Professor Mark Kearney – Interim Executive Dean for the Faculty of Medicine and Health – University of Leeds

Mark is the Interim Executive Dean for the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of Leeds.

Mr Kevin Kiely – Medilink

Kevin founded Medilink over 20 years ago, a model which is now licensed to regions across the UK. Kevin is currently the CEO of North of England and International Executive for Medilink UK

Kevin leads on Medilink’s innovation service provision across the North of England.   He has 20 years’ experience of facilitating and fast tracking new product developments; successfully converting clinical need and new technology advancements into commercially available solutions.   He is a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, a member of the SBRI Healthcare Board and a technology assessor for a number of funding agencies.

As the International Executive for Medilink UK, Kevin facilitates international partnership initiatives and represents government agencies at major events across the world.   He has signed MOUs for cooperation and exchange in trade, technology transfer and R&D with China and Brazil’s largest medical device trade associations.

He supports integrated service delivery through partnership working with key national and regional organisations such as NHS England, BEIS, UKRI, DIT/LSO, AHSNs & Local Enterprise Partnerships.

Dr Ai Lyn Tan Director of Research and Innovation at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

Coming soon

Professor Gordon Cook – Clinical Director – NIHR Leeds In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative

MB ChB, PhD, FRCP(Glas), FRCPath.
Professor of Haematology & Myeloma Studies, Honorary Consultant Haematologist
Clinical Director (haematology) CTRU
Experimental Haematology, Leeds Institute of Cancer & Pathology, University of Leeds. Leeds Cancer Centre, Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust, Leeds

I am a graduate of the University of Glasgow School of Medicine & received my higher professional training in haematology in the West of Scotland. After completion of my PhD, I was appointed as a Consultant Haematologist in the West of Scotland before moving to take up the post of Director of Stem Cell Transplantation at Leeds Teaching Hospitals in 2002. In 2013 I was appointed as Professor of Haematology, University of Leeds where I lead the myeloma clinical and translational research portfolio with a primary interest in tumour immunology and immunotherapy.

I am the Chair of the UK Myeloma Research Alliance and NCRI Myeloma sub-group as well as a member of the NCRI Haematology- Oncology Clinical Studies Group. I am the chair of the UK Myeloma Forum and have represented the interests of both myeloma clinicians and patients in NICE reviews. I am Chief Investigator for NCRI Myeloma X (completed), UKMRA Myeloma XII (in recruitment), UKMRA Myeloma XIV (in set-up), MUKeight (in recruitment) and MUKeleven (in recruitment). My collaboration with industry includes my position as the UK Chief investigator for 4 industry international phase III and IIIb studies & I am the chair of the Myeloma UK Research Advisory Group and Medical Editor of Myeloma Today. Finally I hold the posts of Clinical Director of NIHR (Leeds) IVD Cooperative and Clinical Director (Haematology), CTRU, University of Leeds.