Steering committee
Chief Investigator and Chair: Professor Tom Wilkinson
Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Honorary NHS Consultant Physician
Clinical and Experimental Sciences
Southampton University Faculty of Medicine
Professor Tom Wilkinson is the ACCORD chief investigator and chair of the steering committee. He is Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Honorary NHS Consultant Physician within Medicine at the University of Southampton. He was appointed as Consultant and Senior Lecturer to a joint post held between the Respiratory and Nutrition BRUs and allied to the faculty of medicine in July 2010. He was subsequently awarded a HEFCE New Blood Senior Lectureship on the basis of his track record of clinically focused research in COPD and respiratory infection having been recognised as European COPD researcher of the year prior to his move from UCL. Since his appointment in Southampton Dr Wilkinson has raised over £7m for COPD and infection research.
BRCs Representative: Professor Matthew Brown
Professor of Medicine, King’s College London
Director, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and King’s College London NIHR Biomedical Research Centre
Professor Brown trained as a clinician-scientist and a rheumatologist, including a period of post-graduate study at the University of Oxford. He has made contributions to the development of gene-mapping approaches in human diseases and genome-wide association study methodology, leading to the discovery of thousands of genetic variants, with a particular interest in ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis. In the genetics of rare human diseases, he has identified genes responsible for monogenic forms of arthritis, ectopic bone development, and skeletal dysplasias. He has also led efforts in Australia to translate research sequencing capability into precision medicine programs for cancer patients.
UKRI Representative: Professor Patrick Chinnery
MRC Clinical Director
Director Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit
University of Cambridge
Patrick Chinnery is Director of the Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit. The Chinnery laboratory aims to determine the major nuclear and mitochondrial genetic factors that modulate the clinical expression of mitochondrial disorders, thus explaining the variable phenotype. Specifically, we are working to (i) define the sub-cellular mechanism responsible for the mtDNA genetic bottleneck during female germ cell development (ii) characterise novel nuclear gene defects in patients with Mendelian mitochondrial disorders (iii) define critical nuclear-mtDNA interactions through the investigation of homoplasmic mtDNA diseases. These three laboratory research themes dove tail into a clinical translational research programme studying the natural history of mitochondrial disease, and developing new treatments through investigator-led experimental medicine studies and clinical trials in partnership with the pharmaceutical industry.
Expert Member: Professor Robert Read
Professor of Infectious Diseases University of Southampton
Honorary Consultant UHS NHS FT
Director NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre
Robert Read is Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Southampton, and Honorary Consultant Physician at University Hospital Southampton. He is Director of the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre. He has a special interest in pathogenesis and prevention of infections involving the respiratory tract.
Expert Member: Dr Timothy Felton
Clinical Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant and in Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine
Specialty lead for Critical Care, Greater Manchester NIHR CRN
Academic Lead for the Integrated Academic Training Programme in Respiratory Medicine, Health Education North West
Division of Infection, Immunity & Respiratory Medicine, School of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, The University of Manchester
Tim Felton is a Consultant in Intensive Care and Respiratory Medicine at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and Senior Lecture in the Division of Infection, Immunity and Respiratory Medicine at the University of Manchester. He qualified in medicine in 1999 at the University of Nottingham. Dr Felton undertook his training in Respiratory and Intensive Care Medicine in the North West of England and in Sydney, Australia. He completed an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship and was awarded his PhD in anti-infective pharmacology by The University of Manchester in 2014. His research interests are in the diagnosis and optimal treatment of sepsis and other infections in critically ill patients. He has particular expertise related to optimising antimicrobial drug regimens to suppress emergence of anti-microbial resistance. Dr Felton has received £2.5 M of external grant funding over the last 5 years. He is involved in a number of academic and commercial clinical trials in critically ill patients with severe infections.
Expert Member: Professor Anthony De Soyza
Professor in Pulmonary medicine, Newcastle University & Honorary Consultant, Freeman Hospital, Freeman Hospital Adult Bronchiectasis Service Lead
Chair NIHR National Respiratory specialty group June 2015- date
Chair Scientific Committee EMBARC a European Bronchiectasis network April 2015- 2018
100,000 Genomes/ GeCiP National Lead in Bronchiectasis June 2015- date
July 2007-2012 HEFCE Clinical academic Senior Lecturer, Newcastle University
NIHR HTA panel EESC/ In hospital care 2015- Aug 2019- member, Chair of Panel 2020-2023
Expert Member: Professor S. Dave Singh
Professor of Clinical Pharmacology & Respiratory Medicine
Respiratory Research Group, University of Manchester
Medical Director Medicines Evaluation Unit
Honorary Consultant Respiratory Physician Manchester University Foundation Trust
Dave Singh is professor of clinical pharmacology & respiratory medicine at the University of Manchester. He graduated in medicine from Cambridge University and then specialised in clinical pharmacology and respiratory medicine. His research interest is the development of new drugs for asthma and COPD. He is the medical director of the Medicines Evaluation Unit, where he has acted as principal investigator in over 300 clinical trials. He is a member of the GOLD Science Committee. Currently, he is the chair of the European Respiratory Society airway pharmacology group, and an editor of the European Respiratory Journal and European Respiratory Review. He is a fellow of the European Respiratory Society and of the British Pharmacology Society. He has over 300 publications.
Expert Member: Dr Charlotte Summers
University Lecturer in Intensive Care Medicine
Department of Medicine
Deputy Director of Clinical Academic Training
Director of Academic Clinical Fellow Programme
University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine
Dean, Fellow, and Director of Studies in Clinical Medicine
Selwyn College, Cambridge
Charlotte graduated in both Biomedical Sciences and Medicine from the University of Southampton, and later undertook a PhD at the University of Cambridge investigating the role of inflammation on the pulmonary transit kinetics of human neutrophils, alongside specialist clinical training in Respiratory (East of England) and Intensive Care Medicine (London). She was subsequently appointed as the UK’s first NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Intensive Care Medicine, and went on to be awarded a Fulbright All-disciplines Scholar Award and a Wellcome Trust Fellowship for Postdoctoral Clinician Scientists. Charlotte joined the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine in 2015 from University of California, San Francisco.
Expert Member: Professor Ling Pei Ho
Associate Professor Respiratory Immunology
Consultant in Respiratory Medicine
NIHR BRC Interstitial Lung Disease Theme Lead
Chair, UK NIHR Respiratory-Translational Research Collaboration
Dr Ling Pei Ho is associate professor in respiratory immunology. Her research group studies how immunological responses impact on mechanisms of lung injury and repair. Our projects are divided into mechanistic and translational studies. Broadly, the programme has two aims – (1) to understand the contribution of myeloid cells to lung immunopathology and fibrosis and (2) to bring new treatment and improved management to patients with fibrotic lung diseases focusing on idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and fibrotic sarcoidosis.
Expert Member: Dr Manu Shankar-Hari
NIHR Clinician Scientist
Reader and Consultant in Intensive Care
Kings College London
Manu Shankar-Hari is clinician-scientist in Intensive Care Medicine, and group lead for a translational research group at King’s College London. Manu obtained his PhD from King’s College London, for his work on B cell abnormalities in sepsis and completed his formal training in epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He holds the prestigious National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinician Scientist Award in Intensive Care Medicine. Manu is a tenured faculty in Intensive Care Medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK. Manu’s translational research focuses on immunobiology (lymphocyte abnormalities in sepsis-related critical illness and in sepsis survivors), clinical epidemiology (methods to enrich sepsis and ARDS populations on dominant mechanisms for immune therapy, and epidemiology and proximate determinants of sepsis and ARDS related critical illness). For further details, please see: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/shankar-hari-group
Expert Member: Professor Clive Page
Professor of Pharmacology, King's College London
Director of the Sackler Institute of Pulmonary Pharmacology, King's College London
President Elect British Pharmacological Society
Clive Page is a Professor of Pharmacology, King’s College London and Director of the Sackler Institute of Pulmonary Pharmacology, King’s College London. Clive’s main research interests are in the pharmacology of inflammation and respiratory disease and he has published over 250 scientific papers. Clive was the co-founder and former Chairman of the Board of Verona Pharma plc, an AIM listed Company developing new drugs for the treatment of Respiratory Diseases. He is a Non Executive Director of Babraham Biotechnology Ltd, as well as being a Trustee of the Babraham Institute in Cambridge and the Fraunhofer Institute of Experimental Medicine and Toxicology in Hannover. He is a Non Executive Director on the Board of Immune Regulation Ltd, PreP Biopharma and Epiendo. Clive started his early career in the Pharmaceutical Industry at Sandoz Ltd, Basel, Switzerland and regularly consults to both the Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industry. Clive is a recent former Chairman of the Animal Science Group of the Society of Biology and has contributed widely to the public debate about the use of animals in Research. He was awarded the Society of Biology President’s Medal at its 2012 Annual General Meeting. The Medal is awarded annually to individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the life sciences over the previous year. Clive was awarded an OBE for “Services to Pharmacology” in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2017.
Expert Member: Professor Miles Carroll
Deputy Director, Head of Research, Public Health England
Salisbury, United Kingdom
Prior to his appointment as Deputy Director and Head of the Research and Development Institute, Miles was head of National Infections Service Research at PHE Porton. His current research portfolio includes: naturally acquired immunity to EBOV, understanding the host response to infection, development of emerging disease in vivo models & vaccines, and the application of molecular epidemiology to outbreaks. Miles gained his PhD on HIV vaccine research from the Medical Faculty at the University of Manchester which enabled him to obtain a fellowship to continue his studies on recombinant poxviruses at the National Institutes of Health, USA. On his return to the UK, Miles joined Oxford Biomedica (OBM) as Vice President of Immunotherapy. At OBM Miles invented the cancer vaccine candidate, TroVax and led the pre-clinical and Phase II development programme. Miles has authored >130 publications primarily in the fields of recombinant vaccines, host pathogen interactions and molecular epidemiology, and is the recipient of >15 granted patents. Miles is the PHE Lead for the Emerging & Zoonotic Infections Health Protection Research Unit and serves on several scientific advisory boards including the Animal and Plant Health Agency, Defence Science & Technology Laboratories and the WHO R&D Road Map for Priority Pathogens. Miles has a joint appointment within the Medical Science Faculty at the University of Oxford and is honorary Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Southampton.
Expert Member: Professor Lorcan McGarvey
Professor of Respiratory Medicine
Clinical Professor, Wellcome-Wolfson Institute for Experimental Medicine
Queen's University Belfast
Lorcan McGarvey is Consultant Respiratory Physician at the Royal Victoria Hospital and Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Queen’s University of Belfast (QUB). He graduated with Honours in Medicine from QUB in 1990 and trained in respiratory medicine in Belfast and Sydney, Australia. He is Lead Clinician for the Northern Ireland Clinical Research Network (Respiratory Health) and QUB Academic Lead for the NIHR Respiratory Translational Research Collaboration. Professor McGarvey has published extensively on airways disease. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and elected in 2011 to the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland.
Expert Member: Professor James Chalmers
Professor (Clinical) Molecular and Clinical Medicine
University of Dundee
Professor James D Chalmers is the British Lung Foundation Chair of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Dundee and a consultant physician at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, UK. His major interests are in difficult airways diseases, particularly COPD and bronchiectasis. He chaired the 2020 European Respiratory Society Guidelines on Withdrawal of inhaled corticosteroids in COPD and the 2017 European bronchiectasis guidelines and chairs the European bronchiectasis registry. He is chief investigator for a number of multicentre and international trials in airways disease and has published more than 250 peer reviewed papers. Since 2017 he has been deputy chief editor of the European Respiratory Journal and holds a number of senior appointments in ERS, ATS and BTS.
Expert Member: Professor Keir Lewis
Professor of Respiratory Medicine
Swansea University
Professor Lewis is Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Consultant Physician at Swansea University and was the first clinical chair of the Hywel Dda University Health Board (UHB), being appointed in 2015. Keir is a well-established author of over 170 original papers as well as co-authoring and editing books and book chapters. He is a member of various research committees and task forces and has advised the British and European Thoracic Societies, Welsh Government, DISCHR, NICE and the HTA. Keir is a Chief Investigator and/or collaborator in several ongoing research projects on the clinical and translational aspects of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and smoking cessation and previously won the MediWales Innovation in the NHS Collaboration with International Industry awards.
Statistician: Professor Gareth Griffiths
Professor of Clinical Trials,
Director of the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit
Chair of the ACCORD Statistical Working Group
Co-lead of the AGILE Phase 1 platform
Professor Gareth Griffiths is Professor of Clinical Trials within Medicine at the University of Southampton and was appointed to the Chair of Clinical Trials and Director of the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit in July 2014. A qualified statistician, he has held the positions of senior statistician/scientific lead at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit, London, Director of the National Institute for Social Care and Health Research (NISCHR - Wales) Cancer Registered Research Group and Founding Director of the Wales Cancer Trials Unit in Cardiff before his current appointment at Southampton University. Southampton CTU is a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) support funded clinical trials unit.
Representative for REMAP CAP: Professor Anthony Gordon
Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care
NIHR Research Professor
Imperial College London
Professor Anthony Gordon is the Chair in Anaesthesia and Critical Care at Imperial College and is a Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine based at St Mary's Hospital. He is a Director of Research for the Intensive Care Foundation and is Chair of the Experimental Medicine sub-group of the NIHRCritical Care Speciality Group, helping to deliver nationwide clinical studies. On the ACCORD steering committee, he represents the international REMAP-CAP trial platform, for which he is the UK Clinical Lead.
Dr Nuria Martinez-Alier
Consultant in Children’s Infectious Disease and Immunology, Evelina Children’s Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust
Senior Medical Director, Infectious Diseases & Vaccines, Medical Strategy Lead
Therapeutic Science & Strategy Unit IQVIA
Nuria's area of expertise is in infectious diseases and immunology, having graduated in both Applied Biology (Immunology and Parasitology) from Imperial College London and Medicine from Oxford University. She completed her postgraduate paediatric training in London, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa and USA. She undertook PhD research at the NMRC/NIH, Bethesda, USA in malaria vaccine immunology. Nuria is an expert in infectious diseases phase I/II/III global industry/academic/NGO clinical trials including malaria and tuberculosis treatment and meningococcus B, norovirus, RSV, influenza and tuberculosis vaccines in children and adults. She has been a consultant at Evelina London Children’s Hospital since 2009 where she co-established the paediatric infectious diseases and immunology department. Her recent work as a Medical Strategy Lead at IQVIA has been key in the successful design, start-up and execution of several trials including more recently COVID-19 treatment and SARS-CoV-2 vaccine trials. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
Dr Ben Cons
Special Partner, Vitruvian Partners
Chairman, Charnwood Molecular Ltd
Chairman, Castor EDC bv
Investor Director, Fluidic Analytics Ltd
Investor Director, Talking Medicines Ltd
Advisor, Azadyne Ltd
Director Hanson Advisory Ltd
Dr Cons has more than 30 years’ experience in pharmaceutical R&D and commercialisation in the biotech, pharmaceutical and financing sectors. Ben is a prominent leader in global healthcare and technology, Dr Cons has 20 years of experience with the NYSE-listed pharmaceutical services company IQVIA where he was SVP for corporate development and its associated investment fund NovaQuest. Currently, Dr Cons is a Special Partner at the €2.4B private equity fund Vitruvian, Chairman at the Nottingham based Drug Discovery CRO Charnwood Molecular and Supervisory Board Chairman at Netherlands based Electronic Data Capture provider Castor, with >100 COVID-19 studies on the platform. In addition Dr Cons is a NED at Glasgow based Talking Medicines and the Cambridge based proteomics analytics company Fluidic Analytics. Previously, Dr Cons was an NED at the regulatory and drug safety pharmaceutical services provider Xendo in Holland, which was sold to ProPharma Group. Dr Cons early career included working in respiratory drug development, marketing and business development at Glaxo and diagnostic imaging drug development at Schering. Dr Cons has a PhD in molecular pharmacology from Southampton University.
James Brook
Head of UK & Ireland Clinical Site Management, IQVIA
James Brook joined IQVIA in 2008 following a career which covers over 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry from CRA and progressing through positions in Wyeth, Novartis, and GSK. The diverse companies and roles are reflected in James’ extensive therapeutic and research knowledge and understanding. James’ current role, Head of UK and Ireland Clinical – delivering 20% of the UK commercial research studies, allows him to apply his learning from a varied background in QI having had roles heading Therapeutic Strategy EMEA, Prime and Partner network in Western Europe, and Feasibility and Site ID Western Europe. His guiding principle is that it is a patient’s right to participate in the latest research studies as part of their routine care. James now brings this in-depth patient, site, therapeutic, and clinical research experience in supporting and building the UK and Ireland in being the first choice for clinical research globally.