Speakers

Dr John McDermott is an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Manchester and a Clinical Genetics Speciality Registrar. He was appointed as the UK’s first Academic Clinical Fellow in Genomic Medicine in 2016. Working at the Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine (MCGM) his research focuses on the application genetic and genomic technologies in the acute and everyday healthcare settings. As part of the Newman Laboratory he was awarded funding from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) to undertake the world’s first trial of a genetic test in the acute setting to avoid hearing loss in neonates. The Pharmacogenetics to Avoid Loss of Hearing (PALOH) trial and other similar projects require extensive colaboration between industry, academia and clinicians. This collaborative approach is encouraged at the MCGM and in 2018 Dr McDermott was awarded the NIHR Clinical Research Network award for outstanding contribution to UK research. In 2015 Dr McDermott was a visiting scholar at the MIT and Harvard Broad Institute where he first worked with large “multi-omic” datasets. In 2018 he was awarded the Vienna Medal by the European Society of Human Genetics for his translational research. He is a University of Manchester alumnus and is passionate about the unique opportunities for population health research across the region. Dr McDermott is currently an NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow, investigating models for implementing pharmacogenetics within the NHS.