Advisory Board Members
Professor Sir Ian Kennedy
Professor Sir Ian Kennedy LLD is a lawyer who, for the past few decades, has lectured and written on the law and the ethics of healthcare. He is Chair of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, the new and independent body providing rigorous scrutiny of the allowances scheme for Members of Parliament. He is also Emeritus Professor of Health Law, Ethics and Policy at the School of Public Policy, University College of London and Visiting Professor at the London School of Economics.
He was Chairman of the Healthcare Commission from its creation until 2009, when it was merged with other regulatory bodies to form the Care Quality Commission. He also chaired the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. He is a former Dean of the Law School (1986-96) at King’s College London and President of the Centre of Medical Laws and Ethics, which he founded in 1978. He gave the Reith Lectures in 1980. He was a member of the GMC for nine years and has been a member of the Medicines Commission and the Department of Health’s advisory group on AIDS, Chairman of the public inquiry (1998 – 2001) into paediatric cardiac surgery at Bristol, a government inquiry (1997), into xenotransplantation (the use of animal-to-human transplants), and an inquiry (1998) that recommended changing the law relating to quarantine for animals being brought into the UK from abroad.
He is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) (2002) and was awarded an Honorary DSc by the University of Glasgow in July 2003. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners (2002), Royal College of Physicians (2003), Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (2004), Royal College of Anaesthetists (2004) and Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (2005). He was Knighted for services to medical law and bioethics in 2002.
Professor Michael Farthing
Michael Farthing is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex. He was formerly Principal and Professor of Medicine at St. George’s, University of London, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Glasgow and before that, Dean of the Faculty of Clinical Medicine at Bart’s and the London. He graduated from the University College Hospital Medical School and undertook training posts in Cambridge, London and Boston. He was appointed senior lecturer St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College in 1983 and in 1990 he was awarded a personal Chair.
He was editor of Gut from 1996-2002 and is an editorial board member of several international gastroenterology journals. He has taken an active interest in research and publication integrity and in misconduct in biomedical research. He was founding chairman of COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics). He is Vice Chair and a member of the Board of the UK Panel for Research Integrity in Health and Biomedical Sciences. Professor Farthing is a member of the GMC’s Education Committee and is chair of the group reviewing ‘Tomorrow’s Doctors‘. He was President of the British Society of Gastroenterology until March 2008.
Marc Taylor
C Marc Taylor was until 2011 Head of R&D Systems and Governance in the Department of Health’s Research and Development Directorate. Marc was the lead official for research governance, including national policy on the NHS Research Ethics Committee system and the UK Ethics Committee Authority. He was also the lead official for policy on information systems to support the new virtual National Institute for Health Research.
In 2003 to 2005, he was head of Research Policy and Governance. In 1999 to 2003, he was head of NHS R&D Policy, including the central management of the national NHS R&D Budget.
Before joining the Research & Development Directorate, Marc held posts in the Finance Directorate of the Department of Health, and in NHS Estates, an executive agency of the Department.
In 1976 to 1991, he worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development.
He is Chair of ISRCTN, which owns the ISRCTN register of clinical trials, and a member of the board of the Institute of Clinical Research.
Professor Sir Patrick Bateson
Sir Patrick Bateson was Professor of Ethology, the biological study of behaviour, at the University of Cambridge (1984-2005). He was Provost (Head) of King’s College, Cambridge (1988 to 2003). He was formerly Director of the Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour at Cambridge and later Head of the Department of Zoology. In 2004 he was elected President of the Zoological Society of London. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1983 and was its Biological Secretary and Vice-President from 1998 to 2003. He was knighted in 2003. He is a foreign member of the American Philosophical Society and an Honorary Fellow of Queen Mary College London and holds an Honorary Doctorate of St Andrews University.
Professor Iain Cameron
Iain Cameron is Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Head of the School of Medicine at the University of Southampton. After graduating in Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, he underwent postgraduate clinical and research training in general Obstetrics and Gynaecology and reproductive medicine in Edinburgh, Melbourne and Cambridge. He held the Regius Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Glasgow from 1993 and moved to Southampton in 1999. His main clinical and research interests are reproductive endocrinology, the treatment of sub-fertility and investigation of the impact of the maternal environment on early pregnancy.
He is a member of the Scientific and Ethical Review Group, Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction, WHO; a member of the Executive Committee and Chair of the Medical Staffing Sub-Committee, Medical Schools Council; and a member of the UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) Board.
Dr Pablo Fernandez
Dr Pablo Fernandez is a consultant pharmaceutical physician. Having worked initially in Medical Oncology, Dr Fernandez joined the pharmaceutical Industry in 1979 and has headed international clinical research departments for a number of companies: Cyanamid/Lederle, Wyeth, Wellcome, Bayer and PharmaNet, a global Contract Research Organisation that specialises in clinical drug development.
During this time, he specialised in the clinical development of new medicines, becoming a Member in 1989 of the newly formed Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine (FPM) of the UK Royal Colleges of Physicians and then a Fellow of that Faculty in 1997. He was elected to the FPM Board in 2003 and 2005 and now serves as an Officer of the FPM Board of Examiners, as well as the Panel Convenor for quality management of accredited courses for the Clinical Development module of the Pharmaceutical Medicine Specialty Training syllabus. He is also involved in the preparation of the Faculty’s revalidation system for Pharmaceutical Physicians.
Dr Fernandez was a long-standing member of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s Medical Committee and its successor bodies, the Medical Experts Network and the Clinical Research Experts Network. In that capacity he was closely involved in the initiatives that resulted in the voluntary registration of Industry-sponsored clinical trials in a publicly accessible website.
Professor Russell Foster
Professor Russell Foster is Professor of Circadian Neuroscience and Head of the Dept of Circadian and Visual Neuroscience; Nicholas Kurti Senior Fellow, Brasenose College and head of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, Oxford.
He is a graduate of the University of Bristol where he also gained his doctorate. His research has focused upon fundamental mechanisms in visual and circadian (body clock) neuroscience. A key focus of his work is to aim to enable human beings to cope with 24/7 in such a way that health and productivity are maximised. Enhancing industrial competitiveness, while at the same time improving individual quality of life and providing the best conditions for education, rests upon an understanding of the basic mechanisms of sleep and circadian cycles and their contribution to brain plasticity, learning and memory and their impact on waking performance.
His group has published over 140 papers on this topic. His work has been recognised with the Honma Prize (Japan); Zoological Society Scientific Medal (UK); Cogan Award (USA); and the Edridge-Green Medal (UK);
Professor Christopher Hodges
Professor Christopher Hodges is Head of the CMS Research Programme on Civil Justice Systems at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford. His books include Reform of Class and Representative Actions in European Legal Systems: A New Approach to Collective Redress in Europe (Hart, 2008), European Regulation of Consumer Product Safety (Oxford, 2005), Multi-Party Actions (Oxford, 2001), and European product liability (1993). He is coordinator of the pan-EU Civil Justice Systems Project, which comprises scholars throughout the EU, and co-coordinator of the Global Class Actions Project, and Erasmus Professor of the Fundamentals of Private Law at Erasmus University, Rotterdam.
He graduated from New College, Oxford in 1976 and worked for 28 years in major City of London law firms, latterly as a partner in CMS Cameron McKenna, specialising in product regulation, product liability and class actions. He is a member of the European Commission’s Expert Working Group on the Product Liability Directive, the Academic Advisory Panel of the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on consumer law, is a former Chair of the International Bar Association’s Committee of product liability, unfair competition, advertising and consumer affairs. His PhD was on European Consumer Product Regulation (King’s College, London, 2003).
He has a special interest in health systems and is Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (representing NHS community pharmacists 2007-11). He was Vice-Chair of the Association of British Healthcare Industries (2004-8), and Chair of EUCOMED’s Legal Affairs Committee (1995-2008).
Professor Gordon Murray
Professor Gordon Murray gained a mathematics degree at Trinity College Cambridge and a Diploma in Mathematical Statistics before going to Glasgow to study for a PhD in Medical Statistics. The PhD project involved collaboration with colleagues at the Department of Neurosurgery at Glasgow, where he has had long-standing research collaborations in projects in head injury and stroke. His main research interests are in clinical trial methodology, in collaboration with the European Brain Injury Consortium (EBIC) and its American equivalent ABIC.
He is a member of the steering committees or data monitoring committees of multi-centre clinical trials in areas including cerebrovascular disease, cardiovascular disease, mental health, cancer and musculo-skeletal disorders. He is involved in work both on trials funded by the major research charities and government bodies and also on trials funded by the pharmaceutical industry.
He has considerable experience of teaching research methodology, and has a long-standing interest in promoting good research practice. He was a member of the panel of the 1999 Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh consensus conference on research misconduct which called for the establishment of a UK body of oversee research integrity.
In his current position as Professor of Medical Statistics at the University of Edinburgh, he is based in the Public Health Sciences section of the Division of Community Health Sciences.
Nigel Pleming QC
Nigel Pleming QC is a barrister at 39 Essex Street Chambers, a role taken up in 1974. In January 2000 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in law by Kingston University. He was called to the bar in 1971 and admitted to Silk in 1992. His roles, outside practice at the Bar, have included Vice Chairman of the Mental Health Act Commission, membership of the DH expert group to report on mental health law in England and Wales, and membership of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics – Working Party on the Genetics of Mental Health Disorders. In 2003/2005 he chaired the Inquiry into allegations of sexual abuse by psychiatric patients – The Kerr/Haslam Inquiry, Cm 6640-1.
He is also a Deputy judge of the high Court, sitting as a judge appointed to determine cases in the administrative court list.
He was Counsel to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards and Privileges (96 to 97) and has represented and advised medical regulatory bodies (including the GMC) on research misconduct issues.
Professor William Rosenberg
Professor William Rosenberg is a graduate of the University of Cambridge. He studied clinical medicine at Guy’s Hospital, London, qualifying in 1983.
He undertook his general medical training at the MRC Clinical Research Centre, Northwick Park Hospital, the Royal Brompton Hospital and the University of Oxford.
During his training in gastroenterology and hepatology he became a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, gaining a DPhil in 1992. He was Clinical Tutor in Medicine for 5 years during which time he was a founder of the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine in Oxford, pioneering the development of Evidence Based Medicine in Europe. He undertook further post-doctoral research in hepatology and higher medical training in Oxford before moving to Southampton in 1997.
He is Professor of Hepatology and Consultant Physician at the University of Southampton. His main areas of interest are the molecular and cellular aspects of the immune response to hepatitis C virus infection and clinical trials and clinical epidemiology of chronic liver disease. As an active researcher in hepatology his research spans epidemiology, clinical research in therapeutics and diagnostics and basic science investigating the immune response to hepatitis C.
Professor Rosenberg is the UK Clinical Research Network Associate Director for Experimental Medicine and Chair of the UK NHS R&D Forum.
He is Director of the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility in Southampton, Director of the Southampton Clinical Research Institute and Director of Research and Development for Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust.
Dr Liz Wager
Dr Liz Wager is a freelance medical writer, editor, and trainer. Before setting up her own company, Sideview (in 2001), she worked for Janssen Cilag, GlaxoWellcome, and Blackwell Scientific Publications. She chairs COPE (the Committee on Publication Ethics) and is a member of the ethics committees of the BMJ and WAME (the World Association of Medical Editors). She helped develop the Good Publication Practice guidelines for pharmaceutical companies, the EMWA guidelines for medical writers, Wiley-Blackwell’s Best Practice on Publication Ethics, COPE’s Best Practice for journal editors, the WHO standards for trial registration, and CONSORT for abstracts.
She has run workshops on writing, publication strategy and publication ethics for doctors, writers and editors on five continents. She is the author of books on publication strategy and peer review (Getting Research Published: an A to Z of Publication Strategy, Radcliffe Publishing 2003; How to Survive Peer Review, BMJ Books 2001) and has published many papers and book chapters. She acts as a peer reviewer for BMJ, JAMA, Journal of Medical Ethics, Learned Publishing, Medical Journal of Australia and is a Visiting Fellow of the UK Cochrane Centre.