Matt Martin and Ralph Akyea (University of Nottingham, Primary Care Stratified Medicine Research Group) have recently received £50k NIHR School for Primary Care Research funding for Development and external validation of a risk prediction model for asthma attacks in primary care: a retrospective cohort study. Matt is a Consultant Respiratory Physician at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust with research interests in the phenotyping of asthma, asthma attacks and cough, particularly in developing personalised medicine approaches for prevention and treatment of asthma attacks.
“I will be working on this grant with my Co-PI Ralph who is a Senior Research Fellow with the Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Nottingham and early career epidemiologist with a postgraduate master’s degree in public health and research doctorate in Primary Care. Ralph’s interests include the use of coded data in electronic health records to stratify and improve care in primary care. We will collaborate with experts from other centres including Holly (!) and Prof Kontopantelis from the University of Manchester. We aim to develop and validate (internally and externally) an asthma attack prediction model to estimate the 12-month risk of an asthma attack (using CPRD GOLD and Aurum and HES data) using supervised machine learning approaches guided by expert and patient knowledge. We will obviously be very keen to hear about the results of Holly’s work in this area and to discuss further with anyone else working in a similar area once we get underway!” – Matt Martin
Kenny Macleod is a children’s asthma doctor and based at the Children’s Hospital in Edinburgh for the past 9 years. He works in a team of asthma nurses, doctors and physiotherapists and for a long time and has passion to improve how we look after children with asthma.
Professor David Price is Primary Care Respiratory Society Professor of Primary Care Respiratory Medicine at the University of Aberdeen (UK). He is the Founder and Head of The Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute (OPRI) Singapore, an independent, research-driven organisation established to cultivate initiatives, provide evidence, and drive quality standards within the growing field of real-life, pragmatic, and observational research. The Head of Optimum Patient Care (OPC) Global, Australia and UK, a social enterprise which focuses on disease registries and quality improvement in primary and secondary care. He leads the first International Severe Asthma Registry (ISAR) by creating a consortium of world leaders at the forefront of high risk asthma. ISAR research projects originate from the UK, Australia and globally, with over 30 collaborating countries.
Doctor Kirsty Fletton is a Medical Scientist working at the Observational and Pragmatic Research Institute (OPRI). She is primarily involved with the work with ISAR, the International Severe Asthma Registry, with a focus on high risk asthma. She has a passion for research in respiratory medicine and strives to support advancement in patient care through ISAR projects and collaboration with leading global experts in asthma. She graduated from the University of Liverpool with an MBChB and prior to her role as medical scientist obtained experience in clinical medicine working in the NHS for 5 years, with a subsequent 3 years in the private sector.
Luke’s current research seeks to improve the accuracy with which a diagnosis of asthma can be made in clinical practice. He was awarded a Chief Scientist Office Clinical Academic Fellowship (2017) for “deriving and validating a clinical prediction rule for the diagnosis of asthma in primary care”.