David Jayne is Clinical Co-Director for the HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care. He is Professor of Surgery at the University of Leeds and Honorary Consultant Surgeon at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. He 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.
In 2012, he was awarded an NIHR Research Professorship to develop and evaluated new surgical technologies for patients with bowel cancer. He served as Clinical Director for the NIHR HealthTech Co-operative in Colorectal Therapies (2012-17) and Clinical Director for the current MedTech Co-operative (MIC) in Surgical Technologies (2017-23). He is the Surgical Technologies Theme Lead for the Leeds Biomedical Research Centre and a member of the NIHR Surgical Oncology Translational Research Centre.
David has a long track record of developing junior academic colleagues. He is Deputy ATPD for Surgery in the Yorkshire and Humber Deanery (2014-). He has served on the following training awards committees: national NIHR IAT Awards (2012-2018); NIHR DRF (2012-15); NIHR Clinician Scientist (2015-18), NIHR i4i PDA (2019-). He currently serves on the NIHR Advanced Fellowship committee (2018-). He was Co-Director of the NIHR Advanced Surgical Technologies Incubator (2020-23) with the remit to build national surgical research capacity and capability for medical and other healthcare professional researchers. He is mentor for AMS and NIHR Academy.
Vee is the Senior Operations Director bring complementary expertise and leadership skills to the Senior Clinical Director role, with a proven track record of working cohesively to build interdisciplinary partnerships and training networks to accelerate the translation of innovation into the NHS.
Vee has held NHS professional and management roles, gaining extensive experience of cross-sector working to accelerate the translation and uptake of innovation into the NHS. She was Programme Director for the NIHR Surgical MedTech Co-operative (Surgical MIC) between 2018 – 2023.
Vee has over 15 years experience in leadership roles, developing and implementing strategy as part of research programme grants for the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) in England. This has included leading change management initiatives, supporting clinical research teams to develop long term strategies to improve on their business development capabilities; as well as improving business processes by making them more efficient and effective, to deliver on goals and objectives.
Sheila worked for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust since 1989, 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 joined the HTC in 2016 on secondment and went onto work on the Surgical MIC network as a Project Manager. Sheila’s current role is the HRCs Programme Manager – Operational.
Dr. Andrew J. P. Lewington is a Consultant Renal Physician and Honorary Associate Professor at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, where he is the clinical lead for AKI and a kidney transplant physician. He was an expert advisor to the NCEPOD Adding Insult to Injury AKI study and is the AKI lead for the Renal Association. He is the current Renal Association clinical guidelines chair and sits on the RA clinical affairs board.
Dr. Lewington chaired a multi-professional group to produce the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges AKI core competencies. He is the UK Kidney Research Consortium lead for AKI and is working to facilitate AKI research in the UK. He was co-supervisor of the first Nephrology MRC awarded a grant in West Yorkshire investigating markers of kidney transplant dysfunction. He is the West Yorkshire LCRN renal study lead and the Chief investigator on an NIHR Applied Programme to evaluate protein biomarkers in renal transplantation.
He is chair of the NHS England AKI Risk Workstream. He was a member of the NICE AKI and intravenous clinical guideline groups. Dr. Lewington is the co-chief investigator for the NIHR portfolio study investigating the role of recombinant alkaline phosphatase in the treatment of AKI in sepsis (£29m). He is a chief investigator for the NIHR portfolio study assessing the outcomes of patients with acute kidney injury in critical care.
Jane is an Associate Professor in Clinical Microbiology at the University of Leeds and a Clinical Scientist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust. She was National Clinical Lead for AMR Diagnostics at NHS England from 2022-24.
Her research interests are in Healthcare associated infections, antimicrobial resistance and infection diagnostics. She is a strong advocate for the patient voice in research and healthcare, and of women and healthcare scientists in clinical academic careers. She is Co-Chair of the Empower Leeds Women Network.
MBBS MRCP (Nephrology) PhD @sunildaga23
Sunil is a Consultant Nephrologist at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds. He is the EDI lead for the NIHR HRC (Leeds) and his research interests are improving access to transplantation and improving kidney health. He has experience of working with industry on home digital technology, digital education and application of AI/ML in post transplantation outcomes.
He is an executive member of UK Organ Donation and Transplantation Research Network and is a Subject matter expert in clinical transplant immunology. He is a Health Equity Fellow at West Yorkshire Health Inequality Network and has experience of working with several VCSE organisations across the UK in reducing health inequity. He is a strong advocate of co-production in research and wants the unheard voice to be listened in research.
Naomi is an experienced management professional with a background in Biomaterials and Health Informatics. She has worked as a Programme Analyst and Project Manager for the NHS and is now the Programme Manager for the Early diagnosis and Personalised care theme (HRC). Her greatest desire is to contribute to the creation of cultures that are genuinely more inclusive. Everyone deserves a strong sense of belonging and she has been a dedicated advocate for this throughout her management career. Her technical skills aside – this is most important to her.
Ryan Mathew is an Associate Professor at the University of Leeds and an Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon at Leeds Teaching Hospitals. His clinical practice covers the full spectrum of general neurosurgery with a subspecialty interest in brain tumours; in particular gliomas, meningiomas and awake surgery.
After completing his PhD in Glioma Stem Cells and Organoids, and spending time at the Brain Tumour Research Centre at Sickkids in Toronto, he began co-leading the Stem Cells and Brain Tumour Lab Group where his focus is on translational approaches to technologies that deliver local therapeutic treatments.
As Neurosurgery Lead for the NIHR Surgical MedTech Cooperative, NIHR Surgical Technologies Academy Incubator and Royal College of Surgeons of England Leeds Institute of Clinical Trials Research, he also leads a research portfolio in surgical technologies and devices which encompasses virtual/mixed reality, machine learning/AI, real-time intra-operative tumour visualisation and histology, and local therapeutic delivery. He is Health Lead for Leeds XR, the Basic/Translational Science Lead for the Academic Committee of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, member of the British Neuro-Oncology Society Research Subcommittee, a HoloMedicine Association Founding Member and Core Committee member of the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission Novel Therapeutics Accelerator.
He has published numerous papers, is an internationally invited speaker and teaching faculty, peer-reviews for a number of journals and grant award committees, and has obtained > £8M in grant funding (PI or Co-I).
