Clinical and Scientific Panel
The role of the Clinical and Scientific Advisory Panel is to provide The Anaphylaxis Campaign with expert insight into health and scientific issues related to severe allergies, associated research and advice on related policies and activities.
Members of the Clinical and Scientific Advisory Panel include:
Chair of the Panel - Dr Mark Levy
Chair of the Panel - Dr Mark Levy, GP, Editor Primary Care Respiratory Journal Senior Clinical Research Fellow, Allergy & Respiratory Research Group, University of Edinburgh
Dr Mark L Levy graduated as a medical doctor in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1974. Since 1977 he has been practising as a General Practitioner in London, with a special interest in respiratory diseases – including asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and allergic diseases affecting the respiratory system.
He was one of the six founder members and the first Chairman of the Primary Care Respiratory Society, which was previously known as the GPIAG. His experience, in addition to caring for patients in a busy general practice, includes research, authoring papers and books, editing a peer reviewed medical journal and lecturing about respiratory disease (at national and international conferences).
He was a General Practice trainer for 13 years, and is currently active as a general practice appraiser and Quality Outcomes Assessor in North London. He is a current member of the GINA Executive. He has also been actively involved in managing and implementing change in the field of primary care respiratory medicine and allergy services, both in the UK and through involvement with international colleagues. He is a sessional/ freelance General Practitioner in his old practice in North London.
Professor Jonathan Brostoff, Professor Emeritus of Allergy and Environmental Health, Kings College, London
Dr Andrew Clark, Consultant in Paediatric Allergy, Addenbrooke's NHS Foundation Trust Dr Andrew Clark is a consultant in paediatric allergy at Addenbrooke's Hospital. Dr Clark is perhaps best known for his exciting study of oral desensitisation for peanut allergy, which captured world-wide media attention in 2010. He is now conducting a much larger study which has the potential to dramatically change the way food allergy is treated. His research portfolio is comprehensive and has been supported by grants from the Food Standards Agency and Department of Health over the past decade.
He has written many peer reviewed articles which have influenced clinical practice, exploring definition of the underlying mechanisms, clinical and epidemiological features of food allergy, use of diagnostic tests and the impact of management plans on allergy outcome.
Following completion of medical school training at St George’s Hospital in 1992, Dr Clark underwent training as a paediatrician at St Thomas’ and Guy’s Hospitals, followed by higher specialist paediatric training at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Subsequently Dr Clark completed a doctoral thesis and clinical training in paediatric allergy under the supervision of Dr Pamela Ewan, at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Dr Clark was appointed consultant in paediatric allergy at Addenbrooke’s in 2003 and he now runs the paediatric allergy service there.
Dr Clark is a member of both the Council and Standards of Care Committee of the British Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. He is also Secretary to the European Taskforce on the Allergic Child at School, and was recently appointed expert advisor to the Committee on Toxicity to review peanut avoidance advice given during pregnancy and early childhood. He is a regularly invited speaker at national and international allergy conferences, a reviewer for the major allergy journals and a research reviewer for the Food Standards Agency.
Sue Clarke Clinical Lead for Allergy and Paediatric Respiratory at Education for Health, Warwick
Sue Clarke is Nurse Advisor to The Anaphylaxis Campaign. She is also the Clinical Lead for Allergy and Paediatric Respiratory at Education for Health, and works part-time as a Health Visitor/Asthma and Allergy Nurse. She wrote the School Nurse Training Programme which The Anaphylaxis Campaign rolled out nationally for three years between 2007-2009. Sue developed the original course into AllergyWise, our online course which was launched in August 2010. Sue has also developped this into a course for families, carers and individuals and is currently working on the 3rd in the series which will be aimed at GPs and Practice Nurses.
Dr Alexandra Croom, Consultant Allergist, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Glenfield Hospital, Leicester
Professor Tara Dean, Professor of Health Sciences and Associate Dean (Research) of University of Portsmouth Faculty of Science
Dr Adam Fox, Consultant Paediatric Allergist at Guy's & St Thomas' Hospitals
Adam read Medicine and Neuroscience at Cambridge University before completing his clinical training at University College, London. Having completed specialist training in Paediatric Allergy in 2006, he is now a consultant and joint clinical lead of Allergy at Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospitals, London. He obtained his higher degree (MD) from Cambridge University in 2011.
Adam chaired the Department of Health commissioned RCPCH National Care Pathway for Food Allergy in Childhood and was part of the National Institute of Healthcare and Clinical Excellence (NICE) clinical guideline development group for assessment and diagnosis of food allergy in children. He remains an expert advisor to NICE on Allergy. He is also meetings secretary of the British Society of Allergy & Clinical Immunology.
Adam’s particular interests are food allergy, immunotherapy and medical education. His clinical role involves the management of children with multiple allergic disease including food allergy, asthma and rhinoconjunctivitis as well as children with difficult eczema where food allergy plays a role.
Dr Pierre Dugue, Consultant in Allergy and Asthma, Guy's and St Thomas' and London Bridge Hospital
Rosemary (Rosie) King, Children's Allergy Nurse Specialist at Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust (SUHT)
Rosie qualified in Bournemouth in 1993 with a Dip HE in Professional Nursing Studies with Registration as a General Nurse and followed this up in 1995 in Southampton with a Dip Nursing Studies Child Branch. In 2002 she completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Allergy from the University of Southampton.
For seven years Rosie was the Children's Research Sister in the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility at Southampton, where her interest in children's allergy developed. She has focused her research on investigating the quality of life of families with children with peanut allergy and developing strategies to ease the burden of living with allergy.
Rosie is the Children's Allergy Nurse Specialist at SUHT where she co-ordinates the tertiary allergy multi-disciplinary team service and runs a nurse-led allergy clinic twice a week. Current projects include setting up a transition service for young people with allergy and improving the care of children with allergies in schools.
At an international level Rosie has spoken at conferences on a variety of topics on the impact of food allergy on children and their families. She has been involved in writing national guidelines for the management of allergy. Rosie is a module leader and regularly teaches on the MSc Allergy at the University of Southampton.
Professor Gideon Lack, Professor of Paediatric Allergy, King’s College, London
Professor Gideon Lack is Head of the Children’s Allergy Service at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and Professor of Paediatric Allergy at King’s College London. He is Clinical Lead in Adult and Paediatric Allergy.
He read medicine at Oxford University before training as a Paediatrician in New York, and then specialising in Paediatric and Adult Allergy in Denver, Colorado.
He led the Department of Paediatric Allergy and Immunology at St Mary’s Hospital, London for 12 years and became Professor of Paediatric Allergy and Immunology at Imperial College London in 2005. He moved to King’s College London at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in May 2006.
His research has focused on the prevalence of food allergies in children, and the relationship between food allergies, eczema, and asthma. He is currently working on novel immunomodulatory treatments for food allergies and on developing new strategies to prevent the development of allergies and asthma in children and adults.
Principle Research Dietitian, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children
Rosan completed her degree in Dietetics (1995) as well as Post Graduate Diploma in Dietetics (1996) in South Africa. She specialised in paediatric nutrition in the United Kingdom, focusing on nutritional support, feeding behaviour and allergy. She started working at St.Mary’s Hospital, London in 1998. Her responsibilities as dietitian included the paediatric intensive care unit, the feeding clinic, children with neurodevelopmental delay and food allergies. In 2004 she went on to finish her Masters in Paediatric Nutrition, focusing on paediatric gastroenterology, allergies, nutritional assessment and feeding support. In 2008, she completed her PhD in energy expenditure in critically ill children at Imperial College London. She currently is the principle research dietitian at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, leading a project on the burden of gastrointestinal food allergies. Additionally she is a teaching fellow at Imperial College and module leader of the Food Hypersensitivity Module of the MSc in Allergy. She also has a paediatric gastrointestinal and allergy practice in Basel, Switzerland where she sees a variety of allergic disorders.
Sheila Milne, School Nurse Trainer, Crieff, Scotland
Dr Anna Murphy, Consultant Respiratory Pharmacist, University Hospitals of Leicester
Anna Murphy is a consultant respiratory pharmacist at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. Anna led the development of the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association (UKCPA) Respiratory Group and is currently chairperson of this.
The clinical aspect of her post offers assessment, medicines optimisation, monitoring and advice to people with respiratory disease, working both in hospital and within medical practices. Working across Leicestershire the post includes interface care and the development of services for respiratory patients. She recently led a NHS Innovation Project investigating the role of community pharmacists in the management of people with asthma.
Anna currently works with several national groups and organisations on issues surrounding prescribing in respiratory disease. Anna has published widely in peer reviewed journals. She is author of Asthma-in-Focus, a book primarily for pharmacists and other non-medical prescribers and recently produced the “7-Steps to Success” education materials.
Research interests include medicine adherence in people with respiratory disease and pharmacy practice research.
Dr Shuaib Nasser, Consultant in Allergy, Addenbrooke's, NHS Trust Hospital, Cambridge
Shuaib Nasser is Consultant in allergy and asthma at Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - a regional Allergy centre. He trained in medicine, respiratory medicine and allergy in both London and Cambridge. His clinical and research interests are in asthma, drug allergy and immunotherapy. He has published on aspirin-sensitive asthma, thunderstorm asthma, drug allergy, leukotrienes, asthma deaths and mechanisms of immunotherapy. He chairs the Standards of Care Committee of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology which has led to the development of national guidelines on the management of urticaria, rhinitis, rhinosinusitis, drug allergy, anaphylaxis during general anaesthesia and egg allergy. He was a member of the Resuscitation Council Working Group that published guidelines on the management of anaphylaxis. He also sits on the Royal College of Physicians Clinical Effectiveness Forum and chairs the Eastern Region Confidential Enquiry into asthma deaths.
Dr Richard Pumphrey, Consultant Immunologist, Manchester
Dr Richard Pumphrey was the lead consultant for the NHS Immunology Service based in Central Manchester from 1977 onwards. Since 1990 his clinical focus has been the investigation and management of patients thought to be at risk of anaphylaxis and since 1992 he has maintained the UK register of fatal anaphylactic reactions; this register has provided essential information for studying the epidemiology of fatal anaphylaxis and finding out how the worst dangers of anaphylaxis might be avoided.
He retired from NHS work in 2006 but continues his research into fatal anaphylaxis. He co-chaired the Resuscitation Council’s working group that recently published guidelines for emergency treatment of anaphylactic reactions.
Vice-Chair of the Panel - Dr Michael Radcliffe, Consultant in Allergy Medicine, Sarum Road Hospital, Winchester
Dr Michael Radcliffe is a physician and specialist in allergy. He started out as a general practitioner in Hampshire and has spent the last fifteen years as an adult allergy medicine specialist working in London hospitals. Dr Radcliffe is also a part-time clinical research fellow in allergy at The University of Southampton and has a private practice in Winchester. He has a research interest in the role of nutrition in allergy and the wider aspects of food and environmental hypersensitivity.
Dr Jurgen Schwarze, Edward Clark Chair of Child Life and Health, Child Life and Health, University of Edinburgh
Aziz trained in Physiology and Medicine, graduating from University College, London in 1990 and 1993. After completing his training in general practice, Aziz decided to pursue an academic career specialising in the field of epidemiology. He has held academic posts in the Departments of Primary Health Care & General Practice at Imperial College, London and Public Health Sciences at St George’s Hospital Medical School, London. He has since August 2003 held the post of Chair in Primary Care Research & Development in the Centre for Population Health Sciences at The University of Edinburgh and since 2011 he is Research Director in the Centre for Population Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh.
His research interests include the epidemiology and primary care management of asthma and allergic disorders, medical errors and patient safety, and studying the intriguing relationship between religion, culture and health and he has published and presented extensively in these areas in leading peer-refereed journals and international academic conferences/symposia.
Aziz enjoys a number of editorial positions including that of Editor-in-Chief of the Primary Care Respiratory Journal, Associate Editor of Clinical and Experimental Allergy, Associate Editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Methodology Section Editorial Advisor of PLoS Med, and Editorial Board Member of Diversity in Health and Social Care.
He is Clinical Champion in Allergy (Royal College of General Practitioners) and is also a Member of the WAO Special Committee on Anaphylaxis.
Since 2008 Aziz has been working as an Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Allergy at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh.
Isabel Skypala, Director of Rehabilitation and Therapies, Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust
Isabel is the Director of Rehabilitation and Therapies at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust, which involves the management and strategic planning of all therapy and psycho-social services within the Trust. In addition to her managerial duties, Isabel has practised as a specialist allergy dietitian for more than 30 years, her main clinical experience being with adult patients. She established and runs a very successful food allergy service at the hospital in conjunction with medical colleagues.
Apart from her clinical work, Isabel has also undertaken numerous academic studies, completing a postgraduate diploma in Allergy at Southampton in 2006 and a doctorate at Kings College in 2010.
The doctorate was on the diagnosis of food allergy, with particular reference to Oral Allergy Syndrome, the research output from which has been presented at international Allergy meetings in Europe, the USA and Asia.
Isabel also lectures nationally to both undergraduate and Master level students on food allergy at Imperial, Kings College and Southampton University, and has been an invited speaker at several national conferences including those of the British Thoracic Society, the British Dietetic Association (BDA), the British Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (BSACI) and the British Toxicology Society.
She has written two book chapters on food allergy, and also edited and co-authored a book on food allergy, published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2009. Isabel was a founder member of the Food Allergy and Intolerance Specialist dietitians group of the BDA. She chaired the group for four years from its inception in 2003 and continues to be an active member. In collaboration with two other dietitians, Isabel has also established an international network for people who work in food allergy and nutrition. The network, known as INDANA, was officially launched at the recent European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) meeting in London and is now officially recognised by EAACI. Isabel has also acted in an advisory capacity to both the Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency on food allergy.
Dr George du Toit, Consultant Paediatric Allergist at Guy's & St Thomas' Hospitals
Consultant Paediatric Allergist at Guy's & St Thomas' Hospitals
Honorary Senior Lecturer, Kings College London.
Co-Investigator on the Learning Early About Peanut Allergy (LEAP) and LEAP-On Studies
Dr Jo Walsh, Part-time GP, Norfolk
Jo is a part- time GP in Norfolk, working also as a tutor with undergraduate medical students at the University of East Anglia. Having qualified from The University of Manchester, she worked in several paediatric posts in the North of England before commencing her GP training in East Anglia. She has always incorporated her interest in Paediatrics into her daily practice and more recently developed an interest in allergy. Her knowledge of Primary Care combined with her interest in allergy puts her in a unique position which has led to her involvement in several national allergy projects.
Professor John Warner, Professor of Paediatrics and Head of Department, Imperial College
Honorary consultant paediatrician running a paediatric allergy and respiratory service in Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust based at St. Mary's hospital, London.
Professor Warner’s current appointments include Director of Research for the Women and Children's Clinical Programme Group, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, President of Academic Paediatric Association (GB and I) , and a Senior Investigator in the National Institute of Health Research. He was Editor in Chief of the medical journal Paediatric Allergy and Immunology from 1998-2010.
He has been awarded The JE Purkyne Medal of the Czech Medical Society for work in paediatric respiratory medicine and allergy (April 2001), William Frankland Award, British Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (2005 - for services to allergy) , a lifetime achievement award from European Respiratory Society 2009. He delivered the Pepys lecture during the BSACI annual meeting 2011.
Dr Paul Williams, Consultant Clinical Immunologist, Department of Immunology, University Hospital of Wales
Dr Paul Williams DM FRCP FRCPath was educated at Jesus College, Oxford and Oxford University Clinical Medical School, qualifying in Medicine in 1979. He has been Consultant Clinical Immunologist in Cardiff since 1995. He trained in General and Thoracic Medicine at Birmingham and Cardiff, clinical and laboratory research into primary immunodeficiency disorders and HIV biology at Edinburgh and at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington DC, and clinical and laboratory Immunology at Birmingham. His clinical, laboratory and research interests have been in immunity to infection, primary and secondary immunodeficiency diseases, clinical allergy and immune responses to cancer, with over 60 publications in these areas.
He was a member of the Department of Health’s National Allergy Advisory Group in 2005/6 and of the Strategy group of the ensuing Allergy Skills for Health group in 2007/8. He recently chaired the UK National Quality Assurance Advisory Panels in Immunology, which oversees quality assurance of Immunology tests and was recently a member of the Immunology panel of the National Pathology Benchmarking service. His professional roles in 2012 include:
• Chair of the South of the UK Clinical Immunology Audit Group
• Chair of the Association of Clinical Pathologists Immunology Committee
• Member of the Executive committee of the British Society for Immunology Clinical Immunology & Allergy Section
• Member of the Royal College of Pathologists Standing Advisory Committee on Immunology
• Member of the Joint (Royal College of Physicians & Royal College of Pathologists) Committee on Immunology and Allergy
In his present post his duties include the provision of specialised clinical services in Immunology and Allergy, and specialised laboratory diagnostic Immunology services in Wales. He is responsible for and delivers the teaching of Clinical Immunology to Medical Students at the University Hospital of Wales.
Tanya Wright, Specialist Registered Dietitian at Amersham Hospital, Buckinghamshire
Tanya Wright is a registered dietitian specialising in the diagnosis and management of food allergy and other food hypersensitivity reactions. She works within Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust with both adults and children. Her role is to coordinate the allergy service, to manage her clinical dietetic workload including performing skin prick testing and diagnostic diets and to organise and deliver the food challenge service. She provides information and resources on allergy for other healthcare professionals within and outside the Trust.
She is author of three books; Food Allergies: Enjoying Life with a Severe Food Allergy (Class Publishing 2001, 2007), and two colour recipe books ‘Allergy-free Food’ (Hamlyn 2002) and ‘A Milk Free Cookbook for Infants’ (Cow & Gate 2006) and has contributed to a book entitled ‘Latex Intolerance’ (CRC press 2005) and ‘Food Hypersensitivity’ (Blackwell 2010) and various other publications.
She regularly lectures at both National conferences and on both the post graduate Masters allergy courses at Southampton and Imperial, London. She writes articles and recipes for special diet food companies, formula milk companies, magazines, newspapers, websites and supermarket chains. She is a regular consultant to the food industry, allergy support associations and to other health professionals. Tanya is on the committee of several organisations including the British Dietetic Association and the Food Allergy and Intolerance Specialist Group (FAISG); where she contributes to the production of position papers and is the resources officer providing national updates on special diet products, recipes and resources that aid the diagnosis and management of allergy and other food hypersensitivity reactions.
She is also on the steering group committee for the International dietitians allergy group ‘INDANA’. Tanya also does a private clinic at 79 Harley Street.
