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 Anaphylaxis Campaign’s Clinical and Scientific Advisory Panel
Chair of the Panel: Dr Andrew Clark
Tanya Wright
Professor Jonathan Brostoff
Dr Alexandra Croom
Dr Adam Fox
Dr. Rosan Meyer
Dr Anna Murphy
Prof Jurgen Schwarze
Dr Isabel Skypala
Dr Jo Walsh
Dr Paul Williams
Vice Chair of the Panel: Dr Trevor Brown
Professor Gideon Lack
Sue Clarke
Professor Tara Dean
Dr George du Toit
Sheila Milne
Dr Michael Radcliffe
Dr Andrew Clark, Consultant in Paediatric Allergy, Cambridge University Hospital Trust
Dr Andrew Clark is an expert in paediatric allergy at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He is perhaps best known for his exciting study of oral desensitisation for peanut allergy which was published in January 2014. He has written many other 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. Dr Clark has always worked closely with the Anaphylaxis Campaign in both his clinical and research work.
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 Chair of the Standards of Care Committee of the British Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, which writes national guidelines for specialist allergy care. 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.
Dr Trevor Brown, Consultant Paediatric Allergist, Ulster Hospital, Belfast
Trevor firstly chose his parents carefully without any allergies. Then as a young adult he developed hay fever and compounded that by marrying a young lady who had both hay fever and a mild tendency to atopic eczema. They then went on to produce a son with asthma and hay fever and a daughter with allergies to both cats and kiwi fruit. There is now a grandson who has had transient cow’s milk allergy as a young infant.
This family ‘Allergy March’ has probably had a lot to do with influencing his personal ‘Allergy March’ within his own medical career to date. Beginning briefly as a GP, then re-training to become a Consultant Paediatrician with an interest in asthma, then a broader interest in allergy and now over the past 10 years he has finally evolved to being a Paediatric Allergist. His multidisciplinary children’s allergy service currently holds the Allergy UK award for the ‘Allergy Service of the Year’.
Recently he has been a member of the NICE Guideline Development Groups for Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis. He is on the Executive of both the Primary Care section of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology and the European Academy for Allergy and Clinical Immunology. He was also very involved in developing the UK National Care Pathways for children with allergy.
His main focus now, some would say passion, is wishing to see the understanding of clinical allergy improve both within families and Primary Care and then to see practical interfaces set up throughout the NHS between Primary Care and Specialist Allergy Services.
Professor Jonathan Brostoff, Professor Emeritus of Allergy and Environmental Health, Kings College, London
Sue Clarke Clinical Lead for Allergy and Paediatric Respiratory at Education for Health, Warwick
Sue is currently the Nurse Advisor to the Anaphylaxis Campaign.
For the last 4 years she has been the Clinical Lead for Allergy at Education for Health in Warwick and she continues to lecture on allergy and anaphylaxis. She also works in West Essex as a Health Visitor utilising her allergy skills.
Sue wrote the AllergyWise eLearning training programmes for the Anaphylaxis Campaign. These 3 courses are designed for school nurses, health visitors and trainers, families, carers and individuals and GPs and practice nurses to provide in depth information on managing severe allergies and anaphylaxis.
Sue was involved in the development of the Resuscitation Council Guidelines on Anaphylaxis in 2008, the NICE guidelines on food allergy in children (CG116) and NICE guidelines on Anaphylaxis (CG134) published in 2011, and the NICE quality standard for eczema in children, and is on the editorial board of the new Health Visitor Journal.
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 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. He is currently researching the role of sublingual desensitisation in the prevention of asthma and the use of pre/probiotics in tolerance induction in milk allergy.
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.
Dr. Rosan Meyer, Principal 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.
Dr Anna Murphy, Consultant Respiratory Pharmacist, University Hospitals of Leicester BSc (Hons), M.R.Pharm.S. (SPresc & IPresc), DPharm
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 Elizabeth Angier
Liz trained at Sheffield University and then went on to do medical training in Australia. She then returned to the UK and completed her GP vocational training in Doncaster. Liz now works as a portfolio GP in Yorkshire working across the community and hospital sectors. She is part of a multidisciplinary team at the Adult Allergy Unit in Sheffield. Liz combines this work with an interest in primary care service improvement and system design. She is an Improvement Fellow with the Improvement Academy in Bradford and has recently started as a Clinical Associate with the Vanguard programme at NHS England with the New Care Models team. Previously she was a Clinical Fellow with the National Leadership Academy. Liz is a GP member of the NHS Improving Quality team and on the steering group for the GP Leadership committee at the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management.
Liz’s other roles include being a GP advisor on maternity to the Yorkshire and Humbar Strategic Clinical Network and Secretary European Academy of Allergy And Clinical Immunology Primary Care Group. She is a past Chair of the Sheffield Royal College of General Practitioners faculty and past Chair of British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology Primary Care Group. She is currently a member of the committee working with NICE Quality Standards for anaphylaxis. Liz lectures nationally and internationally and is a reviewer for allergy journals. She is interested in patient experience, integrated care and is committed to trying to improve the journey of care for allergy patients.
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.
Professor Jurgen Schwarze, Edward Clark Chair of Child Life and Health, Child Life and Health, University of Edinburgh
Aziz Sheikh, Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Allergy at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in 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.
Dr 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.
Prof Warner is the immediate past-president of the Academic Paediatric Association; Early years theme lead for the NW London CLAHRC (an NIHR health service delivery research programme which funded out “itchysneezywheezy” integrated care pathways programme which he leads).
Now retired Prof Warner OBE was the consultant paediatric allergy and chest physician at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Professor of paediatrics at Imperial College London
Professor Warner’s past 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 an OBE for services to food allergy research in 2014 and delivered the Morrow Brown Lecture at the 2014 BSACI meeting. Prof Warner is also a foundation fellow of the European Respiratory Society 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, BSc Honours MSc RD Specialist Dietitian, Amersham Hospital, Buckinghamshire
Tanya Wright is a registered Dietitian specialising in the diagnosis and management of food allergy and other food hypersensitivity reactions in children and adults with gastrointestinal, dermatological and respiratory symptoms.
She works in the Paediatric Allergy Service at Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation trust — a centre of excellence, and also within Hillingdon Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. She is a committee member of the Food Allergy and Intolerance Group of the BDA (resources), a Steering group committee member for the International Dietitians Allergy Group INDANA, on the scientific board of the Anaphylaxis Campaign and on the Health Advisory Board of Allergy UK.
She is author of several books and recipe books; Food Allergies: Enjoying Life with a Severe Food Allergy(Class Publishing 2001, 2007), Allergy-free Food (Hamlyn 2002) milk free cookbook for infants (Cow & Gate 2006, Danone 2011), I’m Hungry — Easy Family Recipes free from… (2011, 2nd Edn 2012, 3rd Edn 2013) and has contributed to books entitled ‘Latex Intolerance’ (CRC press 2005) and Food Hypersensitivity (Blackwell 2010) and various other publications. She regularly lectures at National conferences and on both the post graduate Masters Allergy Courses at Imperial College London, for the Allergy Academy and many other undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
She writes articles and recipes, is a regular consultant to the food industry, to Allergy Support Associations and to other health professionals. She also runs special diet cookery courses for individuals and healthcare professionals.