Speakers

Jo Dixon-Hardy

Director; Medical Technology Innovation, University of Leeds

Jo is the Director of Medical Technologies Innovations, Director of Operations of the Medical Technologies IKC and also act as Deputy Director of MeDe Innovation, the EPSRC Centre for Innovative Manufacturing in Medical Devices.  
Jo leads the Medical Technology Innovation team in supporting the translation of research through to clinical application. Her team supports the iMBE Director Ruth Wilcox and a multidisciplinary team of academics, industry and clinicians in addressing strategically-defined healthcare impact challenges for the ageing population.  Jo has facilitated the translation of science and engineering across a range of research disciplines into application over the past 16 years, focusing on medical technology innovation for the past 6 years. Jo is a qualified Executive and Business Coach and have a keen interest in developing new interventions that support the professional and personal development of researchers and in supporting a culture and environment that fosters creativity and innovation.

Michael Messenger

Head, Leeds Centre for Personalised Medicine & Health

Michael is Head of the new Leeds Centre for Personalised Medicine and Health, matching population health and care needs with excellent science and innovation. He is also the Deputy Director of the National Institute for Health Research Diagnostic Evidence Co-Operative Leeds (NIHR DEC), an industry facing collaboration aimed at catalysing evaluations of commercial tests and providing evidence for NHS adoption. He is a co-Investigator on over £17m of commercial and non-commercial research activity with over 15 diagnostic companies.   As a standing member of the Diagnostics Advisory Committee, Michael provides advice to NICE on the formulation of guidance on diagnostic technologies and any other matter related to the evaluation of diagnostic technologies.

Christopher Herbert

Director of operations: Research & Innovation; 

Leeds teaching hospitals nhs trust

Chris is an experienced Business Development and Innovation professional with a focus on the translation and commercialisation of innovative biomedical research. He has worked in a variety of positions within the medical device and advanced therapy sectors, supporting the creation of translational R&D programmes led by clinicians, academics and SME's. 

As Director of Operations for Research and Innovation at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Chris oversees the strategic development and operational management of Research across the second largest NHS Trust in the UK. His role includes supporting the development of new research infrastructure in the organisation and leading the core Research and Innovation function to ensure that research-active staff are supported and that external partners can carry out research within the Trust.  Chris is also focused on creating new partnerships with companies to ensure that patients have access to the latest therapeutics, devices and diagnostics through research programmes.

Martin Stow

Director of Nexus, University of Leeds

Nexus will enable external partners to access more easily the University’s world-class capabilities and expertise to drive forward collaborative innovation. Dr Stow is a biochemist by training with a first class honours degree and DPhil (PhD) from the University of York.  He has over 25 years’ experience working in senior worldwide research and development and leadership roles within the healthcare and life science industries both in multinational businesses – as Vice President for Research and Development with Johnson & Johnson (J&J) – and in ‘start up’ organisations, most recently as the CEO of GENEU Ltd, a disruptive and innovative DNA personalised skincare business. He has brought more than 25 new products to market in the Medical Device, Diagnostics and Consumer sectors, most of which have been launched globally. He has a successful track record of managing teams world-wide by developing talent and capability, implementing processes to ensure sustainability, while driving innovation and creating a valuable pipeline of opportunities which are aligned to strategic goals. 

Jurgen Schneider

chair in biomedical imaging

Pre-clinical imaging facilities are currently being reconfigured with the development of a new Centre for Translational Cardiovascular Imaging. Funded jointly by the University of Leeds and a Strategic Infrastructure Grant from the British Heart Foundation (Principal Investigator Professor Sven Plein) the new facility will bring together a range of state of the art imaging modalities.

Bethany Shinkins

Associate Professor, Academic Unit of Health Economics, University of Leeds

Beth is an Associate Professor in the Academic Unit of Health Economics at the University of Leeds. She leads the Test Evaluation Group, a multi-disciplinary team that focuses on the economic evaluation of medical tests. She is the Methodology Lead for the NIHR Leeds In Vitro Diagnostics Co-operative and the NIHR Surgical MedTech Co-operative. She has a particular interest in the early diagnosis of cancer in primary care.

Geoff Hall

Senior Lecturer in medical oncology & Cancer informatics

Geoff Hall is a Senior Lecturer in Medical Oncology and Cancer Informatics within the Leeds Institute of Cancer and Pathology. As a medical oncologist, he treats women with gynaecological cancer and leads an active portfolio of research trials in the area. As a Senior Lecturer at the University of Leeds, he leads a programme of research in cancer informatics and data analytics with research funding from the MRC, NIHR, Cancer Research UK and Macmillan Cancer Support. He is the senior clinical leader at the MRC Medical Bioinformatics Centre which forms part of the Leeds Institute of Data Analytics. As the Chief Clinical Information Officer for Leeds Teaching Hospitals, he now provides clinical leadership to the wider informatics strategy at the trust including the development and delivery of PPM+, the trust wide electronic patient record and the Leeds Care Record, the integrated digital care record for all health and social care providers for all Leeds patients..