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Network Centres

Network Centres

The following pages outline the capabilities, resources, and specific research capacities of the centres in the TBI-REPORTER Experimental Medicine Network.

Site PI. Professor Antonio Belli

Antonio (Tony) is a Professor of Trauma Neurosurgery and Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon. His research focusses on novel diagnostics and therapeutics for brain and spinal cord injury, as well as advanced neuromonitoring. He has an interest in sport and military concussion and sits on the advisory committees of several sport and governmental organisations.

Research Team Lead. Mrs Hazel Smith

Hazel is a paramedic by background and has led the Trauma, Emergency Care and Intensive Care Research Team at University Hospitals Birmingham for many years. She has a strong track record of managing complex clinical trials in neurotrauma, stroke and intensive care medicine.

Site PI. Mr Adel Helmy

Adel is as Associate Professor, University of Cambridge and Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon, Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He has an interest in neuroinflammation in traumatic brain injury and subarachnoid haemorrhage, as a potential target for therapeutic interventions. He has a broad interest in multi-modality monitoring, in particular cerebral micro dialysis, and its clinical application.

Joanne Outtrim

Lead Research Nurse. Joanne Outtrim

Joanne is an experienced research nurse with a background in Neurointensive Care and more recently in the field of dementia. Joanne has led a large number of observational studies including CENTER-TBI at the University of Cambridge.

Site PI. Dr Jonathan Rhodes

Jonathan is a Consultant in Critical Care and Anaesthesia at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and Honorary Reader at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests focus on traumatic brain injury (TBI), and he was part of the team behind the Eurotherm 32-35 study. He maintains diverse interests in TBI research, including fever management, multimodality monitoring and his most recent multicentre study, evaluating the significance and impact of venous thromboembolism in patients with isolated traumatic brain injury (Traumatic Brian Injury Associated DVT Incidence and Significance -TARDIS, co-founded by the NACCS and the BJA).

Lead Research Nurse. Mr David Hope

David is an extremely experienced research manager. His nursing background is in intensive care, gaining his BSc in nursing and becoming a specialist practitioner. His research career started as a Research Coordinator in 2005 with a particular interest in ICU follow-up. He manages our Critical Care Research group have been involved in many commercial and academic studies and gained a PgDip. in Clinical Trials from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Site PI. Professor David J Lowe

David is Clinical Director of Innovation, University of Glasgow and Clinical Lead Innovation Scottish Government. He is Co-Director of EmQuire the Emergency Medicine research group. He has led the 7T clinical development challenge for UoG and delivering a range of imaging related clinical trials including concussion utilising low field MR, 7T and clinical phenotyping.

Site PI. Professor Willie Stewart

Prof Stewart is Consultant Neuropathologist and Honorary Professor and leads the international, NINDS supported CONNECT-TBI neuropathology program in addition to multiple collaborative research programmes exploring TBI outcomes, including PREVENT Dementia TBI studies (BrainHOPE; RFC; IPV) and the FIELD studies.

Lisa Finnen, research nurse

Lisa Finnen is experienced clinical research facility nurse as part of the EmQuire research team based in the Emergency Department. She has led on a number of imaging and concussion based studies as well as supporting broader portfolio.

Site PI. Prof David Sharp

A neurologist and Associate Director of the Imperial Centre for Injury Studies. His research programme aims to improve clinical outcomes after dementia and traumatic brain injury (TBI), focusing on common cognitive impairments in domains such as memory and attention. He uses cognitive neuroscience and advanced neuroimaging to investigate the effect of brain injury on brain network function and the effects of inflammation and neurodegeneration.

Co PI. Dr Mark Wilson

Clinical Professor specialising in Brain Injury. His specialist areas are acute brain injury (mostly traumatic brain injury) and its very early management. He is co-director of the Imperial Neurotrauma Centre, and co-founder of GoodSAM, a revolutionary platform that alerts doctors, nurses, paramedic and those trained in basic life support to emergencies around them. His research is mainly into the brain in trauma and in hypoxia (using it as an injury model) in humans.

Lead Research Nurse. Niamh Bohnacker

Senior clinical research nurse and Lead of the Neurosurgery, Emergency and Trauma (NET) research team. Has helped set up and deliver a range of clinical studies.

Site PI. Mr Aminul Ahmed

Aminul is a Senior Lecturer in Neurosurgery at King’s College London and Honorary Consultant Neurosurgeon at King’s College Hospital. His research interest is in the use of advanced therapies in traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury. He has expertise in basic sciences research, translational research and also clinical trials for TBI.

Co-PI. Dr. Carmen Lopez Soto

Carmen is a Consultant in Critical Care and Anaesthesia at King’s College London and Clinical Training representative of the Neuro-section within the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine. Her clinical and research interests focus on the management of severe acute brain injury disorders and neuroprognostication as well as communication and teamwork.

Co-PI. Dr. Sharon Jewell

Sharon is a King’s Prize Clinical Research Fellow of King’s College London. Classically trained in clinical neurophysiology, Sharon moved to full-time research in 2014 and has progressed specialist multimodality monitoring in severely brain injured patients at King’s College. Sharon is on the steering committee of the international CoOperative Studies of Brain Injury Depolarisations consortium (www.COSBID.org ), originally established by Professor Strong at King’s College Hospital and now a major international organisation.

Co-PI. Dr. Masumi Tanaka Gutiez

Masumi is a Consultant in Critical Care Medicine at King’s College Hospital, with a background in biochemical engineering. Masumi has conducted basic science research in neuroinflammation. She has a specialist interest in the application of EEG, TCD, and multimodal monitoring to traumatic brain injury.

Site PI. Dr Lara Prisco

Lara is a Senior Clinical Research Fellow, University of Oxford and Consultant NeuroAnaesthetist and NeuroIntensivist, John Radcliffe Hospital. She has an interest in acute brain injury, mechanisms of sedation, and acute and persistent alterations of consciousness. She has a broad interest in multi-modality, in particular brain network assessment using resting state and passive stimuli electroencephalography.

Co-Pi. Mr Mario Ganau

Mario is a consultant neurosurgeon at Oxford University Hospitals with interest in neurotrauma and complex spine surgery. He holds a PhD in Nanotechnology and one in Biomedical Engineering, which largely contributed to his extensive research track. Following completion of postgraduate studies as global clinical scholar in research trials at Harvard Medical School, and a spinal fellowship at Toronto University, he moved to Oxford where he has been a key player in the development of a dedicated neurotrauma service.

Lead Research Nurse. Sally Beer

Sally is an experienced research nurse with a background in emergency medicine and critical care. She is coordinating the acute medicine, critical care, and neurocritical care research teams and manages more than 10 research nurses across the different clinical areas. She has coordinated set up and delivery of more than 50 observational and 20 randomised clinical trials.