Antimicrobial evaluation panel

Biography

Andrew is a clinical–academic working at City St George’s, University of London, and St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. He trained in clinical pharmacology, general internal medicine, and intensive care medicine in London. In addition to his clinical training, Andrew gained substantial experience in clinical trials research, medicines management, and medical education.

Clinically, Andrew works as an intensive care consultant and joint clinical lead for a busy regional neurointensive care unit. He chairs the southwest London Joint Formulary Committee and is active in medicines management activities throughout the trust. Andrew is experienced in health technology appraisal (HTA) and the production of national guidance, having been a NICE TA committee member for over 5 years, and a member of a NICE clinical guideline committee.

Academically, Andrew is a reader in clinical pharmacology and deputy head of assessment for medicine at City St George's, University of London. In his educational practice, he draws on his experience of clinical practice, evidence appraisal and guideline production to equip students for the complexities, uncertainties and practical demands of real-world healthcare. He is a National Teaching Fellow with Advance HE and has co-authored three textbooks of clinical pharmacology and prescribing.

Biography

Dr Alicia Demirjian qualified from the American University of Beirut in 2005 and completed her paediatric and infectious diseases training at Boston Children’s Hospital. After receiving an MMSc in Clinical Investigation from Harvard Medical School, she served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer at the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

She leads the national surveillance of antimicrobial resistance and prescribing at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) and is a Paediatric Infectious Diseases consultant at Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. She led several large outbreak investigations, including UKHSA’s national response to COVID-19 as incident director.

She chairs the UK Paediatric Antimicrobial Stewardship network and is currently working on antimicrobial resistance policy with the UK Institute of Development Studies and the Japan National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in a Dame Sally Davies fellowship role.

Biography

Joe is an infectious diseases consultant and senior lecturer at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and works in the NHS at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital with research.

His research uses techniques like genomic sequencing and mathematical transmission modelling to understand how antimicrobial resistance develops and spreads, both in the UK and worldwide, and to try and develop methods to stop this happening.

Biography

Jasmin is a Consultant in Infectious Diseases & Medical Microbiology. After graduating from the Royal Free & UCL School of Medicine, she undertook Infectious Diseases and Microbiology training in Brighton, and completed a PhD focused on Patient Susceptibility to C. difficile infection. After securing an NIHR ACL post, she carried out research focused on improving Antimicrobial stewardship efforts in the UK and globally.

She currently splits her time working as a Consultant at Kings College Hospital NHS Trust and at the United Kingdom Health Security Agency in the AMR HCAI division. In this role she is the clinical lead for UK Carbapenemase Producing Organism Surveillance strategy, the Infections in Critical Care Quality Improvement Programme and the SIREN study, a large cohort study focused on Winter Pressures in NHS healthcare workers.

Biography

Michael is a consultant in critical care and respiratory medicine working at King's College Hospital, London. He has an interest in complex lung infection and tuberculosis. He was previously a Clinical Adviser to the NICE COVID-19 guidance team.

Biography

Professor Karolin Hijazi is a Professor and Honorary Consultant in Oral & Maxillofacial Medicine. She graduated from the University of Siena in 2004 with cum laude distinction. During her dental undergraduate programme she trained in molecular microbiology and developed a special interest for host-microbe interactions. After completing a PhD in Pathology at King’s College London in 2008, she worked as post-doctoral research associate and continued her involvement in 3 European Commission-funded projects aimed at the development of anti-HIV-1 microbicides. During this time she received early clinical training in Oral Medicine at the King’s College London Dental Institute. She was promoted to Senior Clinical Lecturer in 2016 and Clinical Reader in 2021.

Since her appointment to the University of Aberdeen, she has secured research grant funding totalling over 1 million for national and international collaborative projects in which she is the principal investigator. She is a member of the Infection & Immunity Programme of the Institute of Medical Sciences, and leads the Microbial Diseases Research Group at the Institute of Dentistry, active in several research strands concerned with the study of microbe-host interactions at the mucosal interface.

She has been invited to give research seminars at a number prestigious institutions including Imperial College, University College London and the University of Glasgow. She has acted as external PhD examiner for UK and European institutions. She serves on European Commission research grant funding panels.

Students and post-doctoral fellows of her team have received awards at both national (British Society for Oral Medicine; British Society of Periodontology) and international (HIV Research 4 Prevention) scientific conferences.

Biography

Biography to follow

Biography

Dr Mitul Patel is a Consultant Medical Microbiologist at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust. He is the clinical lead and the lead of antimicrobial prescribing for his Trust. Dr Patel has been a member of various NICE guideline committees since 2016.

Biography

Philip Howard is the Antimicrobial Stewardship Lead for the North-East & Yorkshire region of England. He was a Consultant Pharmacist in Antimicrobials at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust until September 2021 and Honorary Visiting Professor at Leeds University. He is the former President of the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.

He was a member of the Dept of Health ARHAI Antimicrobial Stewardship Group that produced the original Start Smart then Focus Antimicrobial Stewardship Guidelines, and the HPA Primary Care Unit which helped produce the RCGP TARGET guidance on Antimicrobial Stewardship in Primary Care. He is a member of the UK Dept of Health advisory group on AMR & HCAI and the NICE common infections guidelines group, NICE living CoVID guideline group and the NICE new models of antimicrobial funding committee.

His research interests include Antimicrobial Stewardship and antibiotic shortages. He led the first global hospital Antimicrobial Stewardship survey. He has been involved in AMS education and training across the world. He’s a Fellow of Royal Pharmaceutical Society and has won the GHP/GSK/UKCPA Clinical Leadership Award, the UKCPA Lifetime Achievement Award and awarded the Officer of the British Empire (OBE) medal for his services to healthcare. He is a spokesman for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society on Antimicrobials, and for the Antibiotic-Action and British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy charities.

Biography

Aneeka Chavda is the senior lead pharmacist for Infection at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. She is a committee member of the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association Infection Group and is a member of the British Thoracic Society Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis Clinical Advice Service. Postgraduate education includes an MSc in Pharmacy Practice, a non-medical independent prescribing status and is currently a healthcare leadership fellow. Aneeka has particular interests’ data-driven improvements in antimicrobial stewardship and the drug management of multidrug resistant tuberculosis.

Biography

Ceri is a Consultant Antimicrobial Pharmacist in Aneurin Bevan University Health Board in south-east Wales. She has a background in hospital-based clinical pharmacy, and is an independent prescriber specialising in the management of C. difficile infection. Ceri is an Honorary Lecturer at Cardiff University, past chair of the All-Wales Antimicrobial Pharmacy Group a former member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) Antimicrobial Expert Advisory Group. Ceri was a co-founder of the Malawi-Wales Antimicrobial Pharmacy Partnership, and a Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s Global Health Fellow for 2021-22.

Biography

Dr Dagan Lonsdale is a reader and consultant physician in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, and intensive care medicine in London. His research interests are in quantitative pharmacology, with a focus on drug handling in special populations, including antimicrobials in critical illness. He works clinically in intensive care and holds several external roles, including vice president (clinical) of the British Pharmacological Society. Dr Lonsdale has worked as a specialist committee member of the diagnostics advisory committee (clopidogrel genotype testing after ischaemic stroke or transient ischaemic attack).

Biography

Tariq Azamgarhi, has been an antimicrobial pharmacist at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospitals NHS Trust since 2015. He was awarded a Masters in Pharmacy degree from University of Portsmouth in 2007, a diploma in clinical pharmacy practice from University of Medway in 2011 and became an independent prescriber in 2019.

He is currently the lead pharmacist for the bone infection unit at the RNOH delivering specialist care to patients being treated for complex bone and joint infections in an inpatient and outpatient setting. The RNOH is a centre of excellence for bone and joint infections, accepting referrals nationally and internationally.

Tariq has an interest in OPAT, antimicrobial stewardship and phage therapy. He also has an interest in research and is currently undertaking a PhD project on surgical prophylaxis in primary bone sarcomas. He has presented at various national and international infection conferences.

Biography

Dr Sarah Gerver is an epidemiologist at UKHSA, having been with the Agency and its predecessors for 11 years, working specifically within the AMR & HCAI Division. She is the Joint Head and Lead Epidemiologist of the AMR PROGRESS Section, which includes the UKHSA AMR Programme Team, AMR Evaluations as well as the infection burden, sepsis and coinfections teams. She has a focus on using pre-existing administrative datasets to create and optimise surveillance programmes. Sarah has previously been the lead epidemiologist for the antimicrobial resistance and prescribing surveillance team at UKHSA and launched the surveillance programme for CVC-blood stream infections in intensive care units in England.

Biography

Andrew Owen is a Professor of Pharmacology, and Director of the Centre of Excellence in Long-acting Therapeutics (CELT) at the University of Liverpool. He is principal investigator for LONGEVITY, an international project funded by Unitaid that aims to translate long-acting medicines for malaria, tuberculosis, and Hepatitis C Virus. He also leads a pharmacokinetic modelling and simulation core and sits on the executive group for the NIH-funded Long-acting/Extended-release Antiretroviral resource Program (LEAP). Prof. Owen has served as a technical advisor to WHO methods teams for guidelines including for clinical management of Diphtheria, proactive therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) in inflammatory diseases, clinical practice for influenza, and the living guideline on drugs for COVID-19.