hgp2021

 

Speakers

 

Adrian Brown Dr Adrian Brown

Dr Adrian Brown is a Senior Specialist Weight Management and Bariatric dietitian with a PhD in Medicine from Imperial College London. His PhD was a randomised control trial investigating the role of formula low energy diets in people with type 2 diabetes and obesity treated with insulin. His current post is as a NIHR Research Fellow/Lecturer in Nutrition and Dietetics at the Centre of Obesity Research at University College London headed by Professor Rachel Batterham.

Adrian qualified from Leeds Metropolitan University and furthered his studies with an MSc in Nutrition and Dietetics, researching themes of patient satisfaction within a bariatric dietetic service. He has specialised in weight management and bariatrics for over 15 years and helped set up the dietetic services within a regional weight management service where he was the dietetic service lead. He also designed a series of innovative specialist group sessions for patients within a Tier-3 specialist weight management service, with his evaluation of these groups being one of the few published papers evaluating Tier 3 services within the UK.

His research interests centre around type 2 diabetes, obesity, bariatric surgery, weight stigma and the use of low energy diets in different patient populations. He has spoken both nationally and internationally on formula low energy diet in advanced Type 2 diabetes, dietary management of type 2 diabetes, obesity, and bariatric surgery. He is also an Honorary Academic at Public Health England, on the Strategic Council for All Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity and Vice Chair of the Specialist Obesity Group for the British Dietetic Association.

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Professor Melanie Davies Professor Melanie Davies

Melanie Davies is Professor of Diabetes Medicine at the University of Leicester and an Honorary Consultant Diabetologist at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, Leicester, UK. She is based in the Diabetes Research Centre, University of Leicester and is also the Co-Director of the Leicester Diabetes Centre, which has over 160 research staff, at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust. She trained at Sheffield and then completed her training at Cambridge, Ipswich and Leicester.

Professor Davies’ research interests include the causes, screening, prevention, self-management and treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus. She is a National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator Emeritus and Director of the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre. Professor Davies is the Principal Investigator on a number of large global studies in the field of diabetes, obesity, physical activity, sedentary behaviour and cardiovascular disease and has served as an expert for the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on a number of guideline groups. Professor Davies was co-chair of EASD/ADA’s Consensus Report on T2DM Management.

Professor Davies has published over 600 original articles in national and international peer-reviewed journals, such as the Lancet, NEJM and the BMJ and has over £60M of peer review grant funding. She was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the 2016 New Year’s Honour’s List for services to diabetes research and awarded Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2018.

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Professor Partha Kar Professor Partha Kar

Professor Partha Kar is National Specialty Advisor, Diabetes with NHS England and co-lead of Diabetes GIRFT with NHS Improvement.

Partha Kar has been a Consultant in Diabetes & Endocrinology at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust since 2008. He is the pioneer of the Super Six Diabetes Model which aims to deliver diabetes care differently and is recognised as one of the good examples of integrated care.

An avid user of social media such as twitter (@parthaskar) to engage with patients - and been recognised as a "Social media Pioneer" by HSJ in 2014. He also writes a monthly blog for the BMJ, has a personal blog (“Sugar and Spice: Wish all things were nice”) and a podcast (“Sweet Talking”).

Recently he has helped in all diabetes patients on insulin with learning disability to have access to Freestyle Libre- and co-authored a national report on variation in diabetes care in the NS (Diabetes Getting It Right First Time Report 2020). He received an OBE in the New Years Honours List, UK in 2021 for “services to diabetes care”.

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Professor Theresa A McDonagh Professor Theresa A McDonagh

Professor McDonagh qualified from the University of Edinburgh and completed her internal medicine training there. She trained in Cardiology at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow. Her main research was on the epidemiology of Left Ventricular Dysfunction and Natriuretic Peptides hormones.

Subsequently she was appointed as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Glasgow and Glasgow Royal Infirmary where she ran the Heart Failure Service and was the Cardiologist involved in the Heart Transplant Programme (1999-2004). Following this she was a Consultant Cardiologist at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London (2004-2011) where led the Heart Failure Service, before moving to King's College Hospital to head up the Heart Failure Programme.

Her main research interests are in novel biomarkers for heart failure and the delivery of heart failure services.

She is a past Chair of the British Society for Heart Failure a Past Chair of the Clinical Section of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology. She is the Clinical Lead for the National Heart Failure Audit.

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Dr Sarita Naik Dr Sarita Naik

Sarita Naik graduated from Nottingham University Medical School and completed specialist training in diabetes and endocrinology in centres along the south coast before taking up her post at University College Hospital in 2013. She has an interest in type 1 diabetes, insulin pump therapy and currently leads the diabetes antenatal service. She also works closely with Camden and Islington CCG to provide better integrated care for people with diabetes in the community. Sarita obtained an MD in 2012 looking at structured education and psychosocial distress in type 1 diabetes. She undertook further research at Yale University looking at pharmacological treatments for hypoglycaemia in type 1 diabetes and using functional MRI.

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Maarten Taal Professor Maarten Taal

Maarten Taal graduated from the University of Cape Town Medical School, South Africa, in 1987. After completing his post-graduate training in internal medicine and nephrology at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, he joined the Laboratory of Kidney and Electrolyte Physiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, USA under the directorship of Barry M. Brenner, MD. His research focused on mechanisms underlying the progression of chronic kidney disease and earned him a Doctor of Medicine degree. He subsequently moved to the United Kingdom where he was appointed a Consultant Renal Physician at Derby City General Hospital (now Royal Derby Hospital) in 2002 and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham in 2011. He was appointed Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine, University on Nottingham in 2014, where he leads the Centre for Kidney Research and Innovation. He was further appointed Head of Division in 2020 and Director of the Academic Unit for Translational Medical Sciences in 2021. His research interests include Chronic Kidney Disease Progression, Diabetic Nephropathy, Renal Osteodystrophy and Cardiovascular Disease in CKD patients. He has a career-long interest in Chronic Kidney Disease and co-authored the Renal Association’s Clinical Practice Guidelines for CKD. He serves as an Editor for “Brenner and Rector’s The Kidney”, Section Editor for “Current Opinion in Nephrology and Hypertension” and Academic Editor for “PLOS Medicine”. He is a Past President of the British Renal Society.

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Professor David Wheeler Professor David Wheeler

David’s current positions include Professor of Kidney Medicine at University College London and Honorary Consultant Nephrologist at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. He is a Clinician Scientist with an interest in the complications of chronic kidney disease. He has contributed to the development of several large-scale clinical trials assessing lipid lowering therapy, calcimimetics, SGLT2 inhibitors, HIF prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors and intravenous iron in patients with kidney disease. He has recently served as co-chief investigator of the DAPA-CKD study. He has been involved in Clinical Practice Guideline development for several organisations, most recently for Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO). He is immediate past co-chair of KDIGO and past President of the UK Renal Association. Current positions include chair of the International Society of Nephrology’s Advancing Clinical Trials (ISN-ACTs) Committee and NIHR National Specialty Lead for Renal Disorders.

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