Infectious Disease and Antimicrobial Stewardship

Alice Wort

Consultant Microbiologist

Dr Alice Wort works as a Consultant Microbiologist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Gateshead. She is the Joint Clinical Lead for Microbiology for South of Tyne and Wear Clinical Pathology Services. Dr Wort is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists. Her specialist interests are in paediatric microbiology and molecular pathology in infection. She has a PhD in paediatric pneumonia. As a Clinical Lead, she is involved in laboratory innovation to develop cutting edge rapid diagnostics that improve patient care and outcomes. She is passionate about infection prevention and control; antibiotic stewardship; and delivering high quality safe care for patients.

Andrew Conway-Morris

Consultant Intensivist

Dr Conway Morris is a critical care consultant and MRC Clinician Scientist based at the University of Cambridge.  He trained at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh, undertaking a PhD in Edinburgh focused on immune failure in critical illness and nosocomial infection.  His research interests include neutrophil function and dysfunction in critical illness, where he identified complement component C5a as a key driver of dysfunction in patients.  He has also developed and tested a number of diagnostics for pneumonia, using both host and pathogen-focussed techniques.  His animating force is a desire to improve the management of infection in intensive care, and combat the rising tide of antimicrobial resistance.  He was recently awarded the Royal College of Anaesthetists 2023 Mackintosh Professorship.   He is the director of the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine’s research and antimicrobial stewardship learning pathways.

: @andymoz78

Jim Buckley

Consultant Physician in Intensive Care Medicine & Infectious Diseases.

Dr Buckley graduated from UCL in 1998, completing a PhD in Sepsis & Septic Shock at UCL, and qualified as a Consultant in Infectious Diseases, General Medicine, and Intensive Care Medicine in 2011.

From 2011-2015 Dr Buckley worked as a Consultant in all three specialities at Northwick Park Hospital, before moving to the Royal Free Hospital in 2015, working solely as an ICU Consultant.

Dr Buckley has clinical experience in dealing with Lassa Fever in 2008, screening fever in returning travellers from West Africa during the 2014 Ebola epidemic at Northwick Park Hospital and providing Level 3 ICU support to patients with VHF at the Royal Free Hospital in March 2022. The latter also included the critical care transfer of ventilated patients with VHF from UK hospitals to the Royal Free Hospital. Dr Buckley is currently the ICU Lead for HCID at the Royal Free Hospital and his clinical interests include sepsis, septic shock and HLH.

Manu Shankar Hari

ICS Director of Research and Professor of Intensive Care

Manu is one of the Directors of reseach at the ICS. He trained in Intensive Care Medicine in London, completed his MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and did his PhD in Immunology at the Peter Gorer Department of Immunobiology at King's College London, UK. 

Currently, Manu is Chair of Translation Critical Care Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. His translational immunology research programme aims to enable precision immunomodulation in critically ill adults with sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). For additional details, please see - https://www.ed.ac.uk/inflammation-research/people/principal-investigators/professor-manu-shankar-hari. 

: @msh_manu

Richard Bellamy

Infectious diseases consultant

Richard Bellamy is an infectious diseases consultant at South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and the Deputy Dean/ Director for Specialty Training at Health Education England North East. He has worked in several countries including Singapore, Ghana, The Gambia and South Africa. He has a strong interest in medical education, equality and diversity and differential attainment.

Sekina Bakare

Intensive Care Trainee and Trainee Doctor Professional Advisory Group Chair

Dr Bakare is currently an Advanced Trainee in Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthesia in Northwest London. She graduated with Honours from the University of Bristol and commenced her career in the West Country before pursuing Specialty Training in Northwest London. As an elected member of the Trainee Advisory Group of the Intensive Care Society and leverages her expertise to contribute actively to the society's Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Working Group. She also holds the additional responsibility of serving as the EDI lead on the Editorial Board for GPCISv3.

Dr Bakare is deeply passionate about advancing Equity in Healthcare and Medical Education, with clinical interests spanning Major General Surgery and Transfer Medicine.

: @sekina_bakare

Sumita Pai

Consultant Microbiologist

Dr. Sumita Pai works as a Consultant Microbiologist at Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Trust, Cambridge.

She is the Antibiotic Stewardship lead for the Trust and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists.

Dr. Pai was part of the stewardship team that were instrumental in gaining GAMSAS (Global Antimicrobial Stewardship accreditation scheme) level 2 accreditation status for the trust.

Dr. Pai’s special interests are in Cystic Firbrosis, Bronchiectasis and improving laboratory diagnostics in terms of repsiratory samples. She is currently primary investigator for the trust for several infection related research projects – UKAR, SIREN and ITU based SHORTER Study.

She is a member of Cystic Fibrosis Trust Laboratory and Antimicrobial treatment guidelines with a special interest in management of non-tuberculous Mycobacteria. She is involved in regional East of England projects looking into standardising antibiotic course durations for treating community and hospital acquired pneumonia.

Dr. Pai is passionate about her role as the antibiotic stewardship lead and ensuring it is embedded early in medical education. She is currently supervising medical students in reviewing the diagnosis and managemnt of ventilatory associated pneumonia in the trust.

: @sumita_pai

Thomas Hellyer

Clinician scientist in critical care medicine

Senior clinical fellow / honorary consultant critical care medicine.

I am a clinician scientist in critical care medicine at Newcastle University and my clinical practice is based in the Royal Victoria Infirmary intensive care department. My research focuses on improving antibiotic stewardship in critically ill patients. Striking the right balance of effectively treating patients with severe infections while avoiding harms associated with antibiotic overuse, is challenging for critically ill patients.

My current research focuses on optimising antibiotic durations in patients with sepsis. RISC-sepsis is an NIHR EME funded project that is an embedded mechanistic trial within a large pragmatic RCT. We immune phenotype patients to determine whether sepsis-induced immune dysfunction impacts antibiotic stewardship interventions. SHORTER is an NIHR HTA funded pragmatic RCT that aims to determine whether short, fixed-course antibiotics (5 days) are safe and effective in critically ill patients with sepsis.

Greg Barton

Specialist Pharmacist in Critical Care and Burns

I qualified from the University of Manchester in 1998 and since 2004 have worked clinically in Critical Care and Burns at Whiston Hospital, part of Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. I have been a pharmacist prescriber since 2007 and have a specific interest, at a local and national level, in education and training, safe prescribing and workforce development. My clinical passion is around the safe and effective use of medicines in particular optimising antimicrobial administration focusing on their individual Pk/Pd characteristics. This led me to undertake an MPhil examining the role of different administration methods of antibiotics in septic patients and I’ve been Principal Investigator in my Trust for a number of antimicrobial studies including BLING III, AMINO III and the RECOVERY trial. My current roles include being a committee member of the ICS Pharmacist PAG, Chair of the FICM Pharmacy Sub-Committee and a Clinical Member of the NHSE Adult Critical Care Clinical Reference Group.

Rajeka Lazarus

Consultant in Microbiology and Infectious Diseases

I am a UKHSA Consultant in Infectious Disease and Microbiology based at the Bristol Royal Infirmary.

I completed my infection training in Oxford and Singapore and I'm the Vice President of the British Infection Society - I have recently initiated a collaboration with the Intensive Care Society to optimise the delivery of infection services within critical care.

I am the microbiology ECMO lead at the Bristol Royal Infirmary.

My other clinical and academic interests are adult vaccines, sustainability in healthcare and tuberculosis. 

: @@LazarusRajeka

Robert Horne

Professor of Behavioural Medicine at University College London, UK

Rob Horne is Professor of Behavioural Medicine at University College London. His research focuses on the role of psychological and behavioural factors in explaining variation in response to treatment.

Rob trained in pharmacy and health psychology. A key theme in his research is the understanding of patient and public perspectives of illness and treatment and how this can be applied to help get the best from essential treatments for the benefit of individuals and society.

He has developed a series of internationally applied frameworks and tools for supporting treatment engagement and adherence and enhancing patient care including the Perceptions & Practicalities Approach (PaPA) and Necessity Concerns Framework (NCF), which form the basis for the NICE Guidelines for Medicines Adherence.

He has over 300 peer-reviewed publications (>39,000 citations H-index 91) supported by grants of over £30 million (£4.9 million as Principal Investigator) in the last decade. He is a Fellow of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine. He is founding Director of Spoonful of Sugar Ltd, a UCL Business company working globally with industry partners healthcare providers and third sector organisations to implement his research into practice.

Yoann Personne

Director of Medical Affairs, bioMérieux

Dr Yoann Personne, PhD, is director of Medical Affairs for bioMérieux UK & Ireland.

With experience in the diagnostic industry and a background in academic research, his primary interests lie in infectious diseases and associated diagnostics for optimal patient management and prevention of antimicrobial resistance.

: @yoann_personne