EMBRaCE Team

John Moore (Head of Trial Delivery Group)

Dr Moore is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University. He is Clinical Head of Division for Anaesthesia, Peri-Operative Medicine and Critical Care. He is clinical lead of GMCancer’s Prehab4Cancer and recovery programme and leads the regional Enhanced Recovery after Surgery plus programme.

He has leveraged £100,000 of funding from GMCancer for EMBRACE-GM and has extensive experience of innovating to support cancer patients which he will bring to the study.

Gerard Danjoux

Professor Danjoux is a consultant in Anaesthesia and Sleep Medicine at Manchester Foundation Trust. His clinical interests include Preparation and perioperative care of patients for high-risk surgery and Cardiopulmonary exercise testing and risk evaluation. He is an experienced researcher in delivering high profile prehabilitation and other behaviour change research as Chief Investigator. This includes the original published UK prehabilitation research (2006) and NIHR-funded research, as well as a significant body of research in patient-facing work evaluating preferences for prehabilitation delivery and attitudes towards incorporation of wearable technology.

Professor Danjoux has an international profile in topic area as speaker, researcher and as Vice President of International Prehabilitation Society. He implemented the UK’s first community-based Prehabilitation service (PREPWELL) in 2017, which is ongoing in collaboration with Public Health and Primary Care colleagues.

Catherine Fullwood

Dr Catherine Fullwood is the senior statistician at MFT and is an honouree research fellow at the University of Manchester.  She has 10 years of extensive experience in working in clinical trials in the NHS and strong links with academia having previously held an academic post at the University of Manchester.  She brings to the trial an understanding of cancer studies, feasibility studies and the importance of working to good clinical practice to ensure that the feasibility study is utilised to provide robust information for future studies.  Her wide publication record demonstrates an understanding of many different types of trials and the importance of accurate dissemination of research.

Karen Kirkby

Prof Karen J Kirkby leads the PBT research activity in Manchester (UoM and The Christie). She co-leads the PBT components of the recently announced Manchester Biomedical Research Centre (MBRC), Manchester CRUK Major Centre and CRUK ART-NET and sits on the NCRI Clinical and Translational Radiotherapy Working Group (CTRad). Karen has over 190 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including Nature.

Gareth Kitchen

I am an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in translational circadian biology. I will be Chief Investigator and driving force for EMBRACE-GM, I will chair the trial management group, coordinating successful and safe study delivery with the support and mentorship of collaborators, experienced in NIHR trial delivery, through quarterly trial advisory group meetings. I am leading the ethics application, and will manage any amendments required.

Critically, I will provide the link between the practical research team and analytical support staff, taking overall responsibility for generation of results and delivering outputs.

Andrew Martin

My name is Andrew Martin and I am a Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine and Anaesthesia at Manchester Royal Infirmary. I have current roles in medical education, acting as local Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine tutor as well acting as an Honorary Senior Lecturer (Teaching) in Medical Education within the School of Medical Sciences at the University of Manchester.

I have an active interest in clinical research, having most recently acted as principal investigator for Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust for a multi-national trial of Otilimab therapy within severe COVID-19 disease. I am regularly involved in the clinical assessment and recruitment of patients to trials being run through the critical care department.

My research interests include the fields of peri-operative medicine including cardio-pulmonary exercise testing and the use of wearable technology devices within clinical practice.

I have been involved in creating the framework for EMBRACE-GM and am looking forward to contributing to the clinical role out and assessment of this project as it develops further.

Michael Merchant

Dr Michael Merchant is a senior lecturer in Proton Therapy Physics at the University of Manchester and The Christie. His PhD research concerned proton beamline design to investigate the radiation response of living cells. His research interest is the development of in-silico radiobiological models of proton-induced DNA damage and repair for the purpose of proton therapy treatment planning. He will lead the exploratory data analysis in EMBRaCE-GM with a focus on radiotherapy induced fatigue.

Zoe Merchant

Matt is a statistician by background, with extensive expertise in predictive modelling and causal inference. He has worked with routinely collected health data, including data from digital health technologies. He will support the data science and statistical aspects of the project: advising on data analyses and AI algorithm development.

Matthew Sperrin

Anthony Wilson is a consultant in Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.  He is the Group Clinical Lead for Research Informatics and a Member of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics.  His research interests include the use of wearable devices in hospital and the community to improve patient care and the use of data science techniques to improve the utility of routinely collected healthcare data.

Steve Sweeney

Steve Sweeney is a cancer survivor having undergone surgical and radiotherapy treatment for head and neck cancer in 2015. He is an active member of the GM Cancer User Involvement programme, including being a service user representative in the Prehab4Cancer and recovery programme steering group, the Head and Neck cancer pathway board and the GM Cancer Digital Transformation board. His commercial employment is as a digital transformation consultant to UK financial services, providing strategic, marketing, technology and commercial support including transformation programmes.

Anthony Wilson

Anthony Wilson is a consultant in Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.  He is the Group Clinical Lead for Research Informatics and a Member of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics.  His research interests include the use of wearable devices in hospital and the community to improve patient care and the use of data science techniques to improve the utility of routinely collected healthcare data.

John Ainsworth (Chair)

John Ainsworth is Professor of Health Informatics, University of Manchester and Director of the Health eResearch Centre. His research focuses on harnessing computing technology to enhance data science, applying data analytics to improve health services, and applying emerging computing technologies to create novel healthcare interventions. He is also the director of the Connected Health Cities programme, an initiative to unlock the power of information to transform health and social care services across the North of England. He has a varied career with degrees in Physics, Cognitive Science, Health Informatics and has worked in industry as a software engineer. John is involved in numerous research projects, but with a singular focus: to use computing and information technology to improve the health of the population.

Neil Burnet

Prof Neil G Burnet is a clinical radiation oncologist and neuro-oncologist and has been the academic clinical lead for PBT in Manchester since Feb 2018. He was previously in Cambridge where he led the CRUK Programme Grant VoxTox which brought together a multidisciplinary team to study normal tissue toxicity following RT, tracking delivered dose at the voxel level.

Roma Maguire

Roma Maguire is a Professor of Digital Health and Care at the University of Strathclyde. She has significant experience in the development and evaluation of supportive care and digital health interventions utilising patient generated data in the UK and Europe. She is Director of the University of Strathclyde Health and Care Futures initiative. Roma will support Zoe Merchant in the qualitative research components of EMBRaCE-GM (patient self management, clinican’s perception on utility of the data).

Janelle Yorke

Anthony Wilson is a consultant in Anaesthesia and Critical Care Medicine at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.  He is the Group Clinical Lead for Research Informatics and a Member of the Faculty of Clinical Informatics.  His research interests include the use of wearable devices in hospital and the community to improve patient care and the use of data science techniques to improve the utility of routinely collected healthcare data.