About us

Alexander G. Mathioudakis MD, MRCP(UK), PhD, FHEA

Alexander Mathioudakis is a Respiratory Physician and NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Respiratory Medicine at the University of Manchester and Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK. His research focuses on Airway Diseases Phenotypes and personalised medicine, as well as the methodology of clinical research and evidence based medicine.

Professor Jørgen Vestbo DMSc, FRCP, FERS, FMedSci

Jørgen Vestbo is a Professor emeritus at the Division of Infection Immunity and Respiratory Medicine, School of Biological Sciences at the University of Manchester in the UK. He also now has a clinic in Copenhagen where he sees patients 4 days per week, and he is affiliated the Respiratory Research Unit at Gentofte Hospital.

His main research interests have been epidemiology and clinical research in COPD. He has worked on data from the Copenhagen City Heart Study and the Copenhagen General Population Study with a particular focus on the natural history of COPD. He has previously co-chaired the 3-year ECLIPSE study aimed at better characterizing COPD. He has been on steering committees of many large COPD trials (e.g., the Copenhagen Lung Study, TRISTAN, TORCH, FLAME, TRINITY, TRILOGY, TRIBUTE and SUMMIT, and The Salford Lung Study. 

Sebastian Bate MMath

Statistician, Research and Innovation, Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester, UK

Markus Fally MD, PhD, MPH

Markus Fally serves as a Lead Consultant in Respiratory Medicine at Zealand University Hospital – Roskilde, Denmark, and as a Senior Researcher and Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen. He earned his PhD from the University of Copenhagen in 2021, followed by a Master’s in Public Health in 2022. Clinically, his work focuses predominantly on respiratory infections, while his research encompasses quality improvement, research methodology, epidemiology, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and the development of clinical guidelines.

Rebecca Fortescue MA, MB BChir, MPH, MRCGP (2013), FHEA

Rebecca Fortescue is a Clinical Lecturer in the School of Health and Medical Sciences, City St George’s, University of London. She has a background in General Practice and evidence synthesis. She is a Senior Editor for Cochrane and the former Co-ordinating Editor of the Cochrane Airways Group. Her research interests include chronic respiratory conditions and guideline development. Her teaching responsibilities include Public Health and Evidence-based Medicine.

Catherine Fullwood PhD

Dr Catherine Fullwood is the Senior Statistician at MFT and leads a group of five statisticians.  She is also a Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Manchester.  She has 14 years of extensive experience in working in clinical trials in the NHS and strong links with academia having previously held an academic post at the University of Manchester.  She brings to the trial an understanding of clinical trials, respiratory studies and the importance of working to good clinical practice and robust statistical methodology to ensure that the research is statistically valid and appropriate.  Her wide publication record demonstrates an understanding of many different types of trials and the importance of accurate dissemination of research.  

Emily Howlett

Jan Hansel FRCA, MRes

Jan is an NIHR Doctoral Fellow in Intensive Care Medicine at The University of Manchester’s Division of Immunology, Immunity to Infection and Respiratory Medicine. His research is focused on translating precision approaches to respiratory infection and sepsis to bedside, specifically in the space of anti-infective and anti-inflammaory treatments. He has experience in evidence synthesis methodology and has published multiple peer-reviewed systematic reviews, including Cochrane reviews.

John Linnell

Sinduja Manohar

Michalis Miligkos MD, MSc, PhD

Michael Miligkos is a Pediatrician and Academic Fellow at the Department of Allergy of the 2nd Pediatric Clinic of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. As of 2023, he serves on the Pediatric Asthma Committee of the World Allergy Organization. He received his medical degree from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and completed his specialty training in Pediatrics at the “Aghia Sofia” Children’s Hospital in Athens. He holds a Master’s Degree in Clinical and Translational Science from Tufts University and a PhD in Comparative Effectiveness Research from the University of Thessaly. His primary research interest lies in the systematic synthesis and methodological assessment of the available evidence regarding patients with chronic inflammatory diseases, especially of the respiratory system. He has published more than 40 peer-reviewed papers in international medical journals. 

Alan Preston

Mark Simmonds

Professor Dave Singh MD, FBPhS, FERS

Dave Singh is professor of clinical pharmacology & respiratory medicine at the University of Manchester. He graduated in medicine from Cambridge University and then specialised in clinical pharmacology and respiratory medicine. His research interest is the development of new drugs for asthma and COPD. He is the medical director of the Medicines Evaluation Unit, where he has acted as principal investigator in over 300 clinical trials. He is a member of the Global initiative for the management of chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) Science Committee, and currently is the chair of the European Respiratory Society airway pharmacology group. He has served as an editor of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, and is currently an editor at the European Respiratory Journal. He has over 250 publications.

Matthew Sperrin MMORSE, PhD, SFHEA

Matt Sperrin is a senior lecturer in health data science at University of Manchester. Matt is a statistician by background, and obtained his PhD statistics from Lancaster University in 2010. His research interests are at the intersection of prediction modelling and causal inference. He is especially interested in how causal inference can be used to allow prediction under intervention (i.e., what would be the risk IF…), and also how causal principles can help to ensure models are generalisable and fair.

Professor Lesley Stewart BSc (hons), MSc, PhD

Lesley is a Professor of Evidence Synthesis at the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD), University of York and has been CRD Director and Head of Department since 2006. Prior to joining CRD she led the Meta-analysis programme at the MRC Clinical Trials Unit, London. Lesley was a founding member of Cochrane, one of the first cohort of NIHR Senior Investigators, founding Co-Editor in Chief of the journal Systematic Reviews and a member of the NICE Highly Specialised Technologies Committee between 2013 and 2022. She has served as elected president for the international Society for Research Synthesis Methodology and received the Olkin Award for lifetime achievement in research synthesis from the society in 2023.

Lesley’s research interests are in the development and application of evidence synthesis methods, particularly systematic review and individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis, and in research transparency and data sharing.

Ran Wang

Professor Ashley A Woodcock OBE, FRCP, FERS, FMedSci

Ashley Woodcock is Professor Respiratory Medicine at the University of Manchester. His work has focussed on understanding the role of environmental factors in driving asthma. He has undertaken complex and difficult clinical trials on primary and secondary allergen avoidance as an approach to prevention of asthma and showed that these measures increased rather than decreased allergen sensitization. More recently his research has concerned gene-environmental interactions in early childhood asthma. In Manchester he has developed an environment where young scientists are flourishing and developing studies of chronic cough, fungal lung diseases, cystic fibrosis and COPD. Another rather different contribution is his chairmanship of the Montreal Protocol concerning removal of chlorofluorocarbons.