Professor Michael Barry is a Consultant Clinical Pharmacologist and Head of the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics at the University of Dublin, Trinity College. He is the clinical director of the National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics (NCPE) which conducts pharmacoeconomic evaluations on medicines prior to reimbursement under the Community Drugs schemes in Ireland. He is Past-President (2010-2011) of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR). He was a board member of the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) and is a member of a number of National Committees on pricing and reimbursement of medicines.  

Prof. Barry chairs the New Drugs Committee and the Medication Safety Committee at St. James's Hospital, Dublin. In 2013 he was appointed as Clinical Lead for the new HSE Medicines Management Programme. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland and is a specialty trainer for Pharmacology & Therapeutics. His research areas include the cost-effectiveness of high cost drugs including chemotherapeutic agents and biologic drugs, pricing and reimbursement and performance based risk sharing schemes. He has published widely on the cost-effectiveness of medicines in the Irish healthcare setting. 

Prof. Aedín Culhane is Professor of Cancer Genomics and director of the Limerick Digital Cancer Research Centre at the University of Limerick. She is a computational oncologist with over 20 years’ experience in cancer genomics, of which 15 years were in the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University, Boston, USA.  Her research focuses on development of statistical methods for analysis of single cell ‘omics data in cancer to identify molecules that regulate and can be targeted during tumour development, progression, and treatment. She is a leader in Bioconductor, a global open-source software for genomics, and her group is developing methods for the Human Cell Atlas project that aims to catalogue all cells in the human body. She is interested in developing research approaches that more rapidly impact clinical care and is a member of the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics project that is developing open-source tools to use real world data to inform clinical research. She is lead of a recently funded Shared Ireland North South Research Strand II Award to establish an All-Island eHealth Hub for digital health research in cancer.

After graduating from University College Cork in 1988, Prof. Norman Delanty trained in general medicine in Cork and Dublin before completing a neurology residency at Cornell Medical Centre, New York. He then moved to Philadelphia to complete a fellowship at Penn Epilepsy Centre, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2000, he returned to Dublin to take up a position as Consultant Neurologist and Director of the Epilepsy Service and National Epilepsy Surgery Programme at Beaumont Hospital, Dublin in 2000.  He is also Clinical Professor at the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, and a funded investigator at the Science Foundation Ireland-funded FutureNeuro Research Centre at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). 

Professor Delanty has been active in many translational research projects. He initiated the Irish epilepsy biobank, originally funded by the Higher Education Authority of Ireland, and collaborates nationally and internationally with other investigators. He was the clinical instigator in the development of the now nationally-used Epilepsy Electronic Patient Record. He is also the founder of the Irish Epilepsy and Pregnancy Register. Professor Delanty has published widely in peer-reviewed journals, and he has edited two books. In 2009, he received an ILAE Ambassador for Epilepsy Award. He is a recent past President of the Irish Chapter of the ILAE. He co-hosted the joint scientific meeting of the UK and Irish Chapters of the ILAE held in Dublin in October 2016.

Professor Dame Anna Dominiczak is Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Glasgow, Honorary Consultant Physician and Endocrinologist at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Chief Scientist (Health) for the Scottish Government.  In 2016, she was awarded a DBE for services to cardiovascular and medical science.

Between 2020 and 2022, Anna had been seconded to Department of Health & Social Care, UK Government, as Director of Lighthouse Laboratories for Covid-19 diagnostics.

Recognised as a world-leading cardiovascular scientist and clinical academic, her major research interests are in hypertension, cardiovascular genomics, and precision medicine. From 2010 to 2020, Prof. Dominiczak was Vice-Principal and Head of the College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow.  She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the American Heart Association, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the European Society of Cardiology and the Society of Biology. From 2013 to 2015, she was President of the European Society of Hypertension. She is immediate past President of the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland.

She was Editor-in-Chief of Hypertension, journal of the American Heart Association and the world’s top journal in her area of research, from 2012 to 2022. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of a new journal - Precision Medicine - due to launch in July 2023.

Between 2014 and 2021 Prof Bernie Hannigan was Director of Research, Translation and Innovation for Public Health England (now UK Health Security Agency) and previously (2008 – 2014) Director of R&D and Chief Scientific Adviser for Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland, preceded by academia / academic leadership with the University of Ulster. She was appointed as Chairperson of the Board by the Minister for Health on 26 April, 2021.

Bernie’s previous non-executive roles included Board membership of Invest Northern Ireland and of the Marine Institute. Recently she was a member of the Health and Life Sciences Panel for the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF 2022).

A native of Dublin, Bernie graduated from Trinity College Dublin - BA(Mod) Natural Sciences - and PhD (Immunology) from the National University of Ireland for research at the RCSI. She led or participated in research teams that attracted significant external funding, authored over 100 papers and 2 textbooks, and supervised 20 successful PhD students.

Dr Colm Henry was appointed as Chief Clinical Officer of the Irish Health Service Executive (HSE) in April 2018. He previously served as the National Clinical Advisor and Group Lead for Acute Hospitals from 2014 to 2018, National Lead for the Clinical Director Programme from 2012 to 2014 and Clinical Director of the Mercy University Hospital Cork from 2009 to 2012. Following medical qualification, he underwent training initially in Ireland and completed higher specialty training in Scotland. He returned to Ireland following his appointment to the Mercy University Hospital as Consultant Geriatrician in 2002.

As the HSE’s first Chief Clinical Officer, he is responsible for aligning clinical expertise and leadership across the healthcare system from service and policy design to planning and implementation. A core function of the post is the design and implementation of clinical models of care to respond to and meet the challenges of healthcare in the 21st century. His office also is responsible for setting quality and patient safety standards across the health system and ensuring these are met. He is accountable for a number of key national services such as the National Cancer Control Programme and National Screening Service as well as Public Health reform. Dr Henry has lead the clinical response within the HSE to the COVID-19 Pandemic since the first case emerged in February 2019 provided clinical leadership to the HSE Vaccine programme and its rollout to the Irish population.

He attended University College Dublin where he obtained his MB BCh BAO in 1988, and the National University of Ireland, Galway, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in the Irish language in 2017.

Prof. Maeve Lowery is an academic clinician who provides care to patients with oesophageal, gastric, pancreatic and liver cancer at St James Hospital. She returned to Ireland in 2017 having spent a decade working at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York to lead a translational and clinical cancer research programme at Trinity College Dublin.

Her research focuses on understanding the genetic and molecular causes of cancer and applying this knowledge to improving cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment. She is an internationally recognised expert in the field of gastrointestinal cancer and oncology drug development.

Maeve is Academic Director of the Trinity St James Cancer Institute, Ireland’s first Cancer Centre to receive accreditation by the Organisation for European Cancer Institutes (OECI) in 2019. The accreditation is a recognition of excellence in clinical care, research, clinical trials and education, and enables cooperation with peer institutions and hospitals across Europe to improve outcomes for patients with cancer. Maeve is chairperson of the Cancer Molecular Diagnostics Advisory group of the National Cancer Control Program (NCCP).

Dr Teresa Maguire joined the Health Research Board in 2002. Prior to this she worked as a researcher at St Vincent’s University Hospital Dublin and as Scientific Director with a biopharmaceutical company.

Dr Maguire was appointed as Director of Research Strategy and Funding in 2020 where she oversees an annual investment of approximately €50 million in clinical research, population health research and health services research. In addition, she leads the development of policies, strategies, and priorities to maximise the impact of the HRB investment in health research and to demonstrate the value of that impact to all stakeholders.

Prior to taking up her current role in the HRB, Teresa spent time on secondment in the Department of Health to support the establishment of a new Research Services & Policy Unit tasked with supporting evidence-informed decision making in the Department and advancing a broad-based research strategy for the health and social care system.

Dr Maguire has a BSc in Pharmacology from University College Dublin, a PhD from the University of Dundee and a Master’s in Business Practice from the Irish Management Institute.

Dr Shane McKee is a Consultant in Genetic and Genomic Medicine at the Northern Ireland Regional Genetics Service based at Belfast City Hospital, and specialises in the diagnosis and management of patients with rare genetic disorders. He is Clinical Director for the Regional Molecular Diagnostics Service and leads Northern Ireland's contribution to the UK 100,000 Genomes Initiative. Part of that project is to develop GenOCEANIC - an open standards system to assist clinicians and laboratory scientists in the selection and interpretation of genomic tests by integration of phenotypic information with genomic data. As Deputy Chief Clinical Information Officer for Belfast Trust, he is heavily involved in the Encompass Programme, which will implement the Epic electronic health record system across Northern Ireland, facilitating the transition of healthcare into the digital age. 

He regards bikes as part of the solution to the environment, cost of living, health and peace - particularly in the Middle East. He has participated in several charity bike rides for the Nazareth EMMS Hospital in northern Israel where he undertook his medical student elective back in 1993. You can follow Shane’s Nazareth cycling adventures on Twitter @shanemuk and the hashtags #NazBike21 and #NazBike22.

A medicinal chemist by training, Ejner Moltzen worked in research and development at H. Lundbeck A/S in a range of managerial and strategic positions for almost 30 years. He has been heavily involved with running efficient drug discovery projects, both in terms of delivering candidates for clinical trials and optimising the related processes.

As part of Lundbeck’s global research management team, he has been involved in driving the company’s research strategies and activities. He was also responsible for alliance management within R&D, contributing to company collaborations and public-private partnerships, and representing Lundbeck in engagement with the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations and the Innovative Medicines Initiative.

In 2016 he left Lundbeck to found Somami Consulting ApS, a consultancy focused on providing support for R&D projects, operations, alliance management, strategy and policy initiatives, collaboration contracts and project evaluations. He supports both public agencies and private enterprises, nationally and internationally, and works with Innovation Fund Denmark as the agency’s lead representative on international activities relating to personalised medicine. He is currently the elected Chair of ICPermed, an EU-funded European initiative to promote implementation of personalised medicine.

Prof. Charles Normand is Professor of the Economics of Palliative Care and Rehabilitation at the Cicely Saunders Institute at King’s College London, Professor Emeritus at Trinity College Dublin and honorary Professor in Health Economics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is a member of the HRB Board and the Board of St James’s Hospital.

Prof. Normand’s main current research interests are on the economics of ageing and palliative and end of life care. He was a co-founder of the Sphere Programme, a founding co-investigator on the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) and has worked on a range of studies on economic and health economic aspects of ageing in Ireland. He is involved in ongoing studies on how palliative care interventions affect outcomes and costs, and on three European Commission-funded randomised trials of palliative care interventions. 

Prof. Normand has collaborated for many years with the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and is currently co-leading a programme of work on population ageing and the impact on health and social care. He also has an ongoing collaboration with the Kenya Medical Research Institute, looking particularly at how care delivery can be made more efficient.

Muiris O’Connor is Assistant Secretary in the Department of Health, joining in 2015 to head up the R&D and Health Analytics Division. The establishment of this Division reflects the Department’s commitment to evidence-based approaches to policy and to the promotion of research and innovation in Irish health and social care. As the responsibilities encompass international policy, Muiris has been centrally involved in the Department of Health’s management of Brexit and in coordination of the wider health sector response to Brexit. Over recent years, the Division has expanded to include Medicines Unit, Bioethics Unit, Health Information Governance Unit and Policy, Strategy and Integration Unit as well as key aspects of the pandemic response. 

During the pandemic, Muiris focused on the contribution of research and innovation in the fight against COVID and on harnessing the potential of public sector innovation involving HSE, CSO, OGCIO in collaboration with academia and enterprise. Outputs of this work include the CSO Data Hub, the COVID Tracker App, the WHO Solidarity Trials and the delivery of EU Digital COVID Certificates.

Prior to joining the Department of Health, Muiris worked in the Higher Education Authority (HEA), the Department of Education and Skills, the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI), the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG).

Professor Katherine Payne is an academic health economist with 27 years’ applied and methodological research experience in the economic evaluation (using RCT and decision-analytic models) and valuation (using discrete choice experiments and contingent valuation) of health care interventions and specifically personalised medicine. She has had an active research interest in the economics of personalised medicine and genomics since 2003 and now leads a group of health economists using diverse methods to generate evidence to inform whether to introduce examples of personalised medicine into practice.

She has been the lead economist on a number of large MRC-funded consortia looking at using targeted approaches (developing prescribing algorithms) for biologics and other medicines (for lupus, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis). She has been a member of numerous national funding review panels appraising projects on the economics of precision medicine (Canada, UK, The Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Singapore, Luxembourg). She also has previous experience as a member of a NICE Technology Appraisal Committee and has taught healthcare professionals about how to value personalised medicine and genomic technologies.

Deirdre Poretti leads both Personalised Healthcare and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion teams in Roche Ireland, based in Dublin. She is also an active contributor to the broader Personalised Healthcare global network in Roche, working on a number of cross-country initiatives. She has worked at Roche for 14 years, holding positions in commercial, medical and most recently in healthcare innovation, and has worked across many therapy areas, primarily focused on oncology and previously in neuroscience and rheumatology. She holds a degree in cell biology and genetics and a Masters in advanced oncology.

Deirdre recently led a pilot project which brought together a cross-section of the healthcare community in Ireland to design, co-develop and launch a pilot educational molecular tumour board in Ireland. She helped develop a successful public-private partnership framework within the local healthcare ecosystem. She was invited to discuss the programme as a panellist at the Health Summit in Dublin this year. And most recently she was a second author on an abstract for the American Society of Clinical Oncology titled “Developing the educational Molecular Tumour Board in Ireland: pilot to the national initiative”.
 

Dr Ciara Staunton is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Biomedicine, Eurac Research (Italy). In addition, she is an Honorary Research Associate at the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, and a Consultant to the South African National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Her research focuses on the governance of new and emerging technologies, in particular stem cell research, genomic research and biobanking, and the use of health data in research, and she is a member of a number of international advisory boards providing ethico-legal oversight on these topics.

Ciara has been in receipt of grants from the Wellcome Trust, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Irish Research Council. She has been involved in the development of policy in Ireland, Bahrain and Africa. She was recently appointed by The Global Fund to develop its Policy on Privacy and Data Management as part of The Global Fund’s Digital Framework and in 2021 led the development of the Framework for the Governance of Personal Data for the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator.

From 2010-2013 she was a post-doctorate researcher at the Centre for Medical Ethics and Law, Stellenbosch University. During this time, she co-ordinated the Advancing Research Ethics in Southern Africa (ARESA) Program and was a member of the H3Africa Ethics and Regulatory Issues Working Group. She obtained her PhD from NUI, Galway for her thesis The Regulation of Stem Cell Research in Ireland.

Prior to starting her academic career, Ciara was a Legal Researcher at the Law Reform Commission of Ireland.

Orla Tinsley is an award-winning writer, educator, producer and activist.

Orla’s motivational speeches are regularly sought in Ireland and abroad, and they have given talks at NYU, Fordham University, Columbia University and the Irish Center NY.

They have received awards including Medical Journalist of the Year, Tatler Magazine’s Woman of the Year, National Young Person of the Year and the American Ireland Funds “Spirit of Ireland” award.

At the age of 18, Orla began writing and speaking in national media about healthcare injustice for people with cystic fibrosis in Ireland. They are passionate about social justice and education access, and have an MFA from Columbia University where they began teaching Creative Writing in 2018.

They received the Human Rights Award from The Bar of Ireland for their work on organ donation and the lifetime achievement award of the President’s Medal for Storytelling from the Public Institute of Ireland.

Their first creative nonfiction book, SALTY BABY, became an instant best-seller and was nominated for Best Newcomer at the Irish Book Award. Orla’s work is also featured in the Junior and Leaving Certificate English textbooks.

WARRIOR, their documentary about their double lung transplant, was nominated for a New York Film and TV Award and inspired over 10,000 people to sign up to be organ donors.

Their work has been published in The Irish Times, Small Orange Journal, The Irish Independent and The Wall Street Journal.

Orla currently works as an Arts Journalist and teaches workshops in Creative Nonfiction at The Irish Writers Centre.