meet the experts

Professor Colin Dayan

Colin Dayan trained in medicine at University College, Oxford, and Guy’s and Charing Cross Hospitals in London, UK before obtaining a PhD in the immunology of Graves’ Disease in Laboratory of Marc Feldmann. He then spent a year as an endocrine fellow at the Massachussetts General Hospital in Boston, USA before completing his specialist training in diabetes and endocrinology as a Lecturer in Bristol.

He became a consultant senior lecturer in medicine (diabetes/endocrinology) at the University of Bristol in 1995 and Head of Clinical Research at the Henry Wellcome Laboratories for Integrative Neuroscience and Endocrinology in Bristol in 2002. In 2010, he was appointed to the Chair of Clinical Diabetes and Metabolism and Head of Section at Cardiff University School of Medicine, and became Director of the Institute of Molecular and Experimental Medicine in 2011. He has a long established interest in translational research in the immunopathology of type 1 diabetes and thyroid disease and has published widely in both areas.

Professor John Lazarus

John H Lazarus is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Endocrinology at Cardiff University School of Medicine Cardiff, Wales, UK. He is a Cambridge and Glasgow graduate and was Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Columbia University, New York, NY. He is a past president of The British Thyroid Association and former secretary/treasurer of The European Thyroid Association.

His main interests have been in thyroid physiology and pathophysiology as well as thyroid autoimmunity. Work has focused on postpartum thyroid disease and, more recently, thyroid disease in pregnancy with emphasis on screening thyroid function in early gestation.

Mr Barney Harrison

Barney Harrison is Consultant Endocrine Surgeon at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital Sheffield since 1992.

He trained in Cardiff and Lille, France, a past Secretary and past President of the British Association of Endocrine & Thyroid Surgeons, and member of Council of the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons.

Special interests include minimally invasive endocrine surgery, audit and standards of care in thyroid surgery.

Dr Petros Perros

Dr Perros is a Consultant Endcorinologist at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals Foundation Trust and Honorary Senior Lecturer, University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He trained in Newcastle, Glasgow and Edinburgh. He has a longstanding clinical and research interest in thyroid diseases.

He is currently president of the European Group on Graves' Orbitopathy. He has served as Trustee of the British Thyroid Foundation and is Trustee and medical advisor to Butterfly Thyroid Cancer Trust and medical advisor to Thyroid Cancer Alliance.

Dianne Wright

Dianne is the lead endocrine specialist nurse in Bradford. She is responsible for a large caseload of endocrine patients with problems relating to the pituitary gland, adrenal gland, gonads and the thyroid gland. Dianne carries out all the endocrine investigations along with doing two thyroid clinics each week. She has also developed a telephone thyroid clinic which works extremely well both for patients and staff.

Dianne takes part in research, audit, education and delivers presentations nationwide.She became a Trustee for the British Thyroid Foundation in 2007 as the nurse member.

Dr David Kerbel

David Kerbel is a GP in Leicester. He has a special interest in Hypothyroidism and manages approximately 50 patients personally and is responsible for overall thyroid care within his practice.

He teaches GP registrars about how to manage hypothyroidism in primary care.

He is the GP representative for the British Thyroid Foundation.

Graham Beastall is a Clinical Biochemist from Glasgow who has had a longstanding interest in the quality, use and interpretation of laboratory tests of thyroid function. He was a co-author of the UK document on best practice in the use of thyroid function tests.

Graham is currently a member of the international committee that is working on the standardisation of thyroid function tests in order to get better agreement in the results provided by the manufacturers of diagnostic test systems for thyroid function tests.

Graham has served as Committee member for the British Thyroid Association and the Society for Endocrinology. He is currently President of the International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine.

Dr Tim Cheetham

Tim Cheetham is a Paediatrician in Newcastle-upon-Tyne who trained in Nottingham, Oxford and Cambridge.

He has a major interest in thyroid disorders in children and is involved in studies of children with an over-active thyroid gland (thyrotoxicosis) and Congenital Hypothyroidism.

Professor Edzard Ernst

Professor Ernst qualified as a physician in Germany where he also completed his MD and PhD theses. He was Professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) at Hannover Medical School (Germany) and Head of the PMR Department at the University of Vienna (Austria). He came to the University of Exeter in 1993 to establish the first Chair in Complementary Medicine.

He is founder/Editor-in-Chief of two medical journals (FACT (‘Focus on Alternative and Complementary Therapies’) and ‘Perfusion’). His work has been awarded with 13 scientific prizes/awards and two Visiting Professorships. He served on the ‘Medicines Commission’ of the British ‘Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency’ (1994 – 2005) and on the ‘Scientific Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products’ of the ‘Irish Medicines Board’.