Speakers
Dr Thomas Hellyer
Professor Kordo Saeed
Dr Andrew Conway-Morris
Stream 3
This session explores how emerging diagnostics and evolving evidence are reshaping infection management in critical care. Through real-world cases, updated guidance and new research, speakers will examine the role of respiratory metagenomics, approaches to invasive fungal infections, and the evidence behind antibiotic duration in sepsis—highlighting how these developments can support more precise and stewardship‑focused care.
Learning objectives:
Co-chairs: Andy Conway Morris and Reena Mehta
Presentations:
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.
He is the clinical lead for the implementation of respiratory metagenomics in the critical care at the University Hospital Southampton. Currently working as a consultant clinical microbiologist and lead for the bacteriology laboratory at University Hospitals Southampton NHS Foundation Trust & an honorary associate professor at the University of Southampton School of Medicine. His interests are infections in intensive care and orthospinal & major trauma-related infections. He is the chair of the Rapid Diagnostics and Biomarker Working Group of the International Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (ISAC) and the secretary for the Bone and Joint Infection Working Group. He has published on Infection Control, Antibiotic Stewardship, Bone and Joint Infections and sepsis.
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.
Reena is a Consultant Pharmacist in Critical Care at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London and Chair of the Intensive Care Society’s Learning Division.
Her specialist areas of interest are anti-microbial stewardship, medicines use in extra-corporeal circuits and health inequalities.
She has worked in Critical Care for over 15 years, and has co-authored and provided specialist input nationally into areas such as pharmacy critical care workforce, clinical guidelines, and advanced critical care training. Reena is an Associate Editor for the Journal of the Intensive Care Society and an Honorary Senior Lecturer at King’s College London. Within her organisation, she is a Principal Investigator on a number of CRN Portfolio studies
Reena is also the Pharmacy Lead for the South East London ICS - Critical Care/ODN and a member of the United Kingdom Adult Critical Care Pharmacy Leadership Forum. She has recently completed an MSc in Health Economics, Policy & Management at the London School of Economics and Political Science.