Francisca dennis biography templates

About me:

Willie Hamilton is a third generation doctor from Belfast. He specialises in primary care diagnostics, with particular expertise in cancer.

Willie’s research has had a major impact on improving earlier diagnosis of cancer in the UK, which saves lives. He was clinical lead on the main NICE guidance, ‘Referral for Suspected Cancer’ NG12, published in 2015; this governs approximately £1 billion of annual NHS spending. Of the 210 NICE recommendations in NG12, 100 can be traced back in part or wholly to his publications. These new guidelines have contributed to meeting the target of reducing the number of avoidable cancer deaths in the UK by 10,000. The battle is not yet won, but patients are being diagnosed earlier, cancer survival is improving, and year on year hundreds fewer cancer patients are being diagnosed with an emergency complication of their cancer.

Willie and his team have also produced Risk Assessment Tools for all major adult cancers. These provide the GP and patient with an accurate estimate of the risk of cancer when a patient reports symptoms to their GP. These have been converted to electronic form with support from Macmillan the cancer charity. A major randomised control trial of these begins in 2019, supported by a £2 million philanthropic donation from the Dennis and Mireille Gillings Foundation. This illustrates that Willie’s research work remains deeply focussed in general practice, aiming to further improve cancer survival in the UK and internationally.

This work has been supported by grants totalling over £30 million, including an NIHR programme grant (2010-6) and another in 2020, the Department of Health-supported Policy Research unit (2010-18, renewed in 2019), the flagship Cancer Research UK Catalyst award with Cambridge, (2015-2020) and philanthropic funding from the Gillings Foundation. He received a CBE for services in improving early cancer

I am an algal physiologist and ecologist. My key interests are in understanding the diversity and plasticity of metabolic traits in natural ecosystems and how such knowledge can be translated for innovation purposes.

The main themes of my group are: Environmental Metabolomics and Physiology – discovering traits associated with cold tolerance, the role of metabolic plasticity in responding to environmental and climate change, the distribution of metabolic traits across populations and its implications for astrobiology, and Algal Biotechnology and Innovation – exploring novel sources of sustainable biomaterials, nutrients, high value products, feedstocks and bioenergy for the bioeconomy and space sector.

I carry out research and supervision on a wide range of algal topics from the ecology of snow algae in Antarctica, remote sensing polar algae blooms, using algae for bioenergy, bioremediation, pigments and food production on earth across all continents to exploiting algae to help astronauts on long term space missions. I also lead the EU EIT-Food international algae biotechnology training courses across Europe.

At SAMS my research (PDRAs, PhDs, MSc, technicians, interns) and coordination team (PGT coordinator, EIT PMs) is on average 10-12 people over each year on numerous projects. I am the Programme Leader, and module leader on the new UHI MSc Algal Biotechnology course and a Science Advisor for the UKRI NERC CCAP facility at SAMS. At the University of Cambridge I co-established and managed the Algal Innovation Centre, and at CCAP-SAMS I co-developed the new UKRI-NERC supported Algal Research, Innovation and Environmental Science Centre (ARIES). I have contributed to and led position papers and policy documents and advise Government Departments in the sector (COP26 Earth Observation briefing document, DEFRA, ESA BioMoon UK Space sector committee), BIS and CEN, EABA). I was also serving on the UKRI NERC-NBAF/NEOF steering committee for five years.

• Karen Jeffrey, Lana Woolford, Rishma Maini, Siddharth Basetti, Ashleigh Batchelor, David Weatherill, Chris White, Vicky Hammersley, Tristan Millington, Calum Macdonald, Jennifer K Quint, Robin Kerr, Steven Kerr, Syed Ahmar Shah, Colin R Simpson, Srinivasa Vital Katikireddi, Chris Robertson, Lewis Ritchie, *Aziz Sheikh, *Luke Daines

1. Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

2. Public Health Scotland, Glasgow and Edinburgh, UK

3. NHS Highland, Inverness, UK

4. Patient and Public Contributors, affiliated to Usher Institute

5. National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK

6. NHS Borders, Melrose, UK

7. NHS Dumfries & Galloway, Dumfries, UK

8. School of Health, Wellington Faculty of Health, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, NZ

9. MRC/CSO Social & Public Health Sciences Unit, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK

10. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

11. Academic Primary Care, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

12. Institute of Applied Health Sciences, University of Aberdeen

Background: Long COVID is characterised by emergent or persistent symptoms following infection with SARS-CoV-2. Understanding who is most likely to develop long COVID is vital for planning and targeting support for patients and identifying treatments.

Methods: We derived and internally validated a multi-variable logistic regression model for long COVID using linked electronic health records (EHR) from primary care, secondary care, laboratory testing, and prescribing data for adults (≥18 years) resident in Scotland between 1st March 2020 and 20th October 2022. We used a data-driven approach to identify individuals as having long COVID, informed by symptoms, investigations, and management strategies found to be indicative of long COVID. Candidate