Professor William Newman
Bill Newman is a Consultant Clinical Geneticist at the Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine, MFT and Professor of Translational Genomic Medicine at the University of Manchester.
He is the Clinical Director of the Northwest Genomic Medicine Service Alliance. He is President elect of the European Society of Human Genetics. He has a long -standing interest in the clinical implementation of pharmacogenetics and generating the evidence to support this. He is the co-lead of the NHSE Network of Excellence in Pharmacogenetics and Medicines Optimisation.
Dr Ann Daly
Ann Daly is Professor of Pharmacogenetics at the Faculty of Medical Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. She holds BA and PhD degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Dublin (Trinity College). She was a postdoc at the University of Geneva and then moved to Newcastle University where she was a founder member of the Newcastle Pharmacogenetics Research Group. Her current research is focused on the genetic susceptibility to idiosyncratic adverse drug reactions, pharmacogenetics of the human cytochromes P450 and the genomics of complex diseases, particularly liver disease. She has been a Senior Editor of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology since 2020. She has published over 250 peer reviewed articles and has a H-index of 101.
Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed
Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed (MB ChB, PhD, FRCPE, FRCP, FFPM. FRSB, FBPhS, FMedSci) is David Weatherall Chair in Medicine at the University of Liverpool, NHS Chair of Pharmacogenetics, and a Consultant Physician at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital. He is Director of the Centre for Drug Safety Sciences, and Director of the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine. He is also Director of HDR North. He is an inaugural NIHR Senior Investigator, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in the UK, Commissioner on Human Medicines. He was President of British Pharmacological Society from January 2020-December 2021, and is currently President of the Association of Physicians. He was awarded a Knights Bachelor in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2015. His research focuses on personalised medicine, clinical pharmacology and drug safety in a variety of disease areas, including cardiovascular medicine.
Dr Emma Magavern
Dr Magavern is a Clinical Pharmacology Registrar in London and a PhD candidate at the William Harvey Research Institute, QMUL, working with Professor Mark Caulfield. She completed a BA in English prior to her MD and subsequent MScs in Bioethics and Genomics. Through training in clinical medicine, humanities, genetics and pharmacology she has developed an interest in the scientific merits, clinical potential and implementation challenges of pharmacogenomics. She was co-secretary of the RCP/BPS working group on pharmacogenomics and led the ESC pharmacotherapy working group pharmacogenomics position paper. She is part of the newly appointed NHS England Network of Excellence for Pharmacogenomics.
Dr Videha Sharma
Videha is the Clinical Innovation Lead for the Pankhurst Institute for Health Technology Research and Innovation at the University of Manchester. He has a PhD in Health Informatics and completed fellowships in Digital Health, Medical Leadership and Clinical Entrepreneurship. A surgeon by training he now has a portfolio career spanning clinical medicine and health technology. He leads a range of projects across healthcare providers, academia, and industry, aimed at impacting patient care by translating new and emerging innovations into clinical practice.
Videha leads the clinical informatics strategy for the implementation of pharmacogenomics at the NHS Network of Excellence in Pharmacogenomic and medicines optimisation. Building on his experience in user-centred design, interoperability and health data standards, Videha helps bridge the gap between digital health and genomics.
He is also the co-founder of Fava Health; an early-stage start-up providing digital services that help put pharmacogenetics into practice - unlocking the potential of personalised medicine at scale.
Ms Victoria Chaplin
Vicky is the Pharmacy Genomics Lead for the Genomics Unit at NHS England. She and her team work in collaboration with the NHS GMS Alliances’ Pharmacy Leads and other key stakeholders to embed genomic medicine into mainstream care, and enable patients to realise the benefits of medicines optimisation driven by genomic and diagnostic characterisation. This lead role is also part of the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s Pharmacy Advisory Group ensuring the work is coordinated across pharmacy and medicines developments across the NHS and government. During her career, Vicky has worked across various sectors of pharmacy in the NHS, including primary care, secondary care and community pharmacy as well as in regional and national roles supporting medicines optimisation and the use of medical devices, including digital therapeutics. She has also worked as a Medical Advisor in the pharmaceutical industry, with a significant part of her role focusing on the intersection of medicines, medical devices and digital tools. Her specialist area of interest is diabetes, and as well as undertaking postgraduate studies in genomic medicine, she holds additional qualifications in clinical pharmacy, as an independent prescriber, and in health economics. She is a member of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics and has worked in various areas of digital health for many years; she currently supports the Genomics Unit in a Clinical Safety Officer role.
Dr John McDermott
Dr John McDermott is a Clinical Geneticist and an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. He was appointed as the UK’s first Academic Clinical Fellow in Genomic Medicine in 2016. Working at the Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine (MCGM) his research focuses on the application genetic and genomic technologies in the acute and everyday healthcare settings. As part of the Newman Laboratory he was awarded funding from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to undertake the world’s first trial of a genetic test in the acute setting to avoid hearing loss in neonates. The Pharmacogenetics to Avoid Loss of Hearing (PALOH) trial and other similar projects require extensive collaboration between industry, academia and clinicians. This collaborative approach is encouraged at the MCGM and in 2018 Dr McDermott was awarded the NIHR Clinical Research Network award for outstanding contribution to UK research. In 2015 Dr McDermott was a visiting scholar at the MIT and Harvard Broad Institute where he first worked with large “multi-omic” datasets. In 2018 he was awarded the Vienna Medal by the European Society of Human Genetics for his translational research. He is a University of Manchester alumnus and is passionate about the unique opportunities for population health research across the region. Dr McDermott is currently an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow, investigating models for implementing pharmacogenetics within the NHS. (@John_H_McD)
