SEAC : Committee - Membership

Committee Members

Professor Chris Higgins (Chair)

Professor Chris Higgins is Vice Chancellor and Warden of Durham University. He is an international authority in the biological and medical sciences and has held previous positions at the Imperial College London, University of Dundee, the University of Oxford and the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of the European Molecular Biology Organisation and is a Founder Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He has been a Member of Council of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, on the Governing Council of the John Innes Centre, and on the Council of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Regional Development Agency ONE. He has received the Howard Hughes International Research Scholarship, the Fleming Medal of the Society of General Microbiology and the CIBA Medal of the Biochemical Society.

Professor Higgins has extensive experience of chairing both academic and research committees and has served as a scientific advisor to the House of Lords Select Committee on Stem Cells. He is experienced and accomplished at communicating scientifically challenging issues to the media and general public. Professor Higgins was re- appointed as Chair of SEAC for a second term on 31st July 2007.

Mr Peter Jinman (Deputy Chair)

Mr. Peter Jinman is a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and is senior partner of The Laurels Veterinary Group in Herefordshire working with farm, equine and companion animals. He is a Past President of the British Veterinary Association, Council member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. Peter Jinman brings to the Committee over 30 years’ experience of handling agricultural veterinary issues, including BSE and scrapie. He has been a member of SEAC since May 2000.

Professor John Collinge

John Collinge is a Professor of Neurology and Head of the Department of Neurodegenerative Disease at the UCL Institute of Neurology in London. His research interests are in neurodegenerative diseases - in particular transmissible spongiform encephalopathies or prion diseases. He is Director of the UK Medical Research Council's Prion Unit, a multidisciplinary research unit focussing on human prion disease, and leads the NHS National Prion Clinic at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. Professor Collinge has served on numerous Government advisory committees on prion disease at a national, European Union and international level. His laboratory demonstrated in 1996 that the new human prion disease, variant CJD, was caused by the same prion strain as that causing BSE in cattle and has made a number of key contributions to understanding the prion diseases since 1989. He is a Founder Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society and was awarded a CBE for services to medical research.

Dr Azra Ghani

Azra Ghani is a Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology in the MRC Centre for Outbreak Analysis and Modelling in the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London. Her research focuses on the development of mathematical models of infectious disease transmission with applications to a range of diseases including HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, malaria, tuberculosis, SARS and avian influenza. She has worked on the epidemiology of BSE and vCJD for over 10 years.

Professor Richard Knight

Professor Knight is consultant Clinical Neurologist at the National CJD Surveillance Unit, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh and Professor of Clinical Neurology at the University of Edinburgh. His interest in CJD began in 1980 when working on research with Professor Bryan Matthews at Oxford University. His main prion disease research interests centre on the clinical features, epidemiology and diagnosis of human prion diseases. Aside from responsibilities for surveillance in the UK, he is an active member of a European collaborative group (EuroCJD).

Professor Jean Manson

Professor Jean Manson, OBE is Head of the Neuropathogenesis Division of the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh and R(D)SVS. She holds a personal Chair at the University of Edinburgh. She heads a scientific division researching into neurodegenerative diseases associated with protein misfolding diseases with particular expertise in the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. She has served as a member of SEAC since 2004 and as a member of the WHO TSEs Working Group. She is currently also a member of the Advisory Committee for Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) TSE Working Group and the Executive Committee of the NeuroPrion EU Network of Excellence.

Ms. Diane McCrea

Ms. Diane McCrea is an independent consultant on food and consumer affairs. Her work focuses on consumer issues and issues of food safety, food labelling, consumer information and the consumer input into regulatory affairs. Ms. McCrea is a member of the Food Standards Agency's Advisory Committee on Animal Feedingstuffs and the Agency’s Advisory Committee on Research. Ms. McCrea is also a member of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's Governing Body of the Institute of Food Research.

Professor Graham Medley

Graham Medley is Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Warwick. He has researched the epidemiology and transmission dynamics of a wide variety of infectious diseases of humans and livestock. Professor Medley began his career in 1983 at Imperial College, and moved to Warwick in 1993 as a Royal Society University Research Fellow. As well as conducting basic research, Professor Medley is interested in the development of cost-effective interventions to control disease, and the interaction between science and policy development. He has advised government on HIV/AIDS, as well as TSE, and currently sits on a Wellcome Trust grant panel.

Professor James Nicoll

Professor James Nicoll is Professor of Neuropathology at the University of Southampton and Consultant Neuropathologist at Southampton General Hospital. Professor Nicoll is an expert in the field of neurodegeneration and has considerable experience of clinical neuropathology.

Dr Roland Salmon

Roland Salmon is Director of the National Public Health Service for Wales’ Communicable Disease Surveillance Centre, in Cardiff, where he has worked as a field epidemiologist since 1990, on surveillance and the investigation of outbreaks of infectious diseases. Medically trained, he has further qualifications and experience in general practice and public health. He is an active teacher and researcher with a particular interest in zoonoses (diseases that spread from animals to man), notably verotoxigenic E.coli O157 infections and spongiform encephalopathies.

Professor Margaret Stanley

Professor Margaret Stanley is Professor in Epithelial Biology, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge. Professor Stanley is a recognised expert in the pathogenesis of infectious disease in humans and animals, with an international reputation for her research into papillomaviruses. Professor Stanley is experienced at providing expert advice having served as a member of scientific advisory boards in both the private and public sectors in the United States and in Europe.

Professor Alun Williams

Alun Williams is Professor of Veterinary Diagnostic Pathology, Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge. He is both a diagnostic pathologist and a research pathologist with responsibilities for teaching and training undergraduate and postgraduate students. Alun has over 19 years' research experience in TSEs, particularly in the cellular and molecular aspects of neurodegeneration in these diseases.

Page last updated: 17 November, 2009