Biomedical Health Research Centre

The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust

Our
people

Professor Stephen Smye

Title


BHRC Director

Email


S.W.Smye@leeds.ac.uk

Phone


0113 3926519 or contact Pauline Binnie (PA) on 0113 392337

Address


Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
34 Hyde Terrace
Leeds
LS2 9LN

BHRC Role

  • BHRC Management Team member
  • BHRC Executive Team member
  • BHRC SSAC member

Research Interests

  • Nuclear Medicine
  • Bioengineering

About

Professor Stephen Smye is Director of Research and Development at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust and Deputy Director of the UK Clinical Research Network. Professor Smye is a physicist by profession, with degrees from Cambridge, Imperial College London, and Leeds Universities. He joined the NHS in 1981.

 He has worked in nuclear medicine and bioengineering, and was President of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine (2001-2003), which comprises over 3000 physicists, engineers and technologists working within the Health Service, academia and industry, in the UK and overseas. He is engaged in a number of grant-funded research programmes jointly with Leeds University, notably in mathematical modelling of physiological processes and is an Honorary Professor of Medical Physics and Health Research in the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health at Leeds University.

He has also been involved in the development of NHS policy for Research and Development, and is a member of the NIHR Advisory board and the MHRA Medical Technology Forum. He was previously Vice Chair of the Northern and Yorkshire Regional Research Capacity Committee, a member of the Department of Health’s Research Governance steering group, and a member of the Science Council. He was a co-applicant on the successful joint bid from Leeds and London for the UK Coordinating Centre for Clinical Research Networks and was a member of the steering group for the UKCRN. He was a member of the Researcher Development Awards panel for the National Institute of Health Research’s Research Capacity Development programme. He is also a member of the Royal College of Physician’s Standing Committee on Academic Medicine and was made an honorary Fellow of the College in 2005.

Collaboration

He has played a key role in encouraging high quality translational research and innovation, including supporting good working relationships between physical scientists and clinicians at both a local and national level. These collaborations currently entail research programmes in a number of areas including; modelling drug transport in tumours (with Dr Roger Philips, University of Bradford, Professor Brian Sleeman, Department of Applied Mathematics and Dr Pam Jones, Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine), electroporation (with Professor Peter Olmsted, Physics Department), the development of a novel in-vivo electroporation technique (with Dr Martin Robinson, University of York and Dr Tony Evans, Division of Medical Physics) and measurement and modelling of the gravid uterus electro-hysterograms (with Professor Arun Holden, Faculty of Biological Sciences and Mr Nigel Simpson Faculty of Medicine and Health). Previous work has included modelling the variation of blood gases in ventilated neonates, optimising the delivery of drug aerosols, the development of electrical techniques for the measurement of hydration status, the development and use of mathematical models to measure dialysis efficiency and clot formation, the use of TeraHertz radiation to measure tissue properties and application of neural networks to clinical datasets. Funders include NIHR, EPSRC, Yorkshire Cancer Research, MRC, Leukaemia Research Fund, SPARKS, NHS R&D. He was co-applicant on a recent successful application to the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) to create a Health Technology Cooperative (Devices for Dignity), led by Professor Wendy Tindale of the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Foundation Trust. Good working relationships between scientists and clinicians have been an important feature of each of these programmes.

Related Links

R&D Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust