• Award of a NIHR Biomedical Research Centre to Manchester.  I led a resubmission invited by the Department of Health in 2008.
• Award of more Walport academic training posts than any centre bar Imperial: emphasising the success of a policy to establish Manchester as a ‘citadel of training’.

• Restructuring of the Faculty from 74 direct reports (departments, institutes, centres) into eight schools, with establishment of Faculty Management, Learning and Research Committees
• Comprehensive research assessment exercise to determine priorities for investment
• Introduction of rigorous performance management with metrics for research and education achievement.

1992 William Blair-Bell Memorial Lectureship

1994 International Society for Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy: Young Investigator Award.

1995 Joan Dawkins Fellowship (awarded by the BMA Board of Science and Education).

1997 Edgar Research Fellowship (awarded by Wellbeing)

2004 Sir William Liley Lecturer (Perinatal Research Society)

2005 President’s Achievement Award of the Society of Gynecologic Investigation (The first time this award had been made outside North America).

I have been awarded grants totalling over £14M for my own research portfolio.  Grants from the Medical Research Council (MRC), the British Heart Foundation and the Wellcome Trust are currently held. I was previously the principal investigator of an MRC Development Grant and I am currently co-PI of an MRC programme grant and a Wellcome Trust Translational award.  The majority of these grants relate to the study of the pathogenesis of pre-eclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction.

I have personally led institutional research applications that have successfully accrued >£50M; several of these applications represent cross-faculty interdisciplinary initiatives.

In July 2009, I joined the perinatal investigators in the Department of Obstetrics, University of Alberta.  Alberta is home to the Human Metabolome project – and I have used our expertise in metabolomics to develop screening tests for major pregnancy complications.

Studies investigating pre-eclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction form major parts of my research portfolio. These major pregnancy complications are studied at a molecular, cellular, blood vessel and whole body level with each project interacting with and strengthening other projects.

In 1995, the research staff at the City Hospital division of the School of Human Development consisted of a technician and a research fellow.  In five years, I established a critical mass of researchers; in 1999 my group had more abstracts accepted at the Society of Gynecologic Investigation (the major international scientific meeting within our speciality) than any other centre.

In March 2001, I moved to Manchester, to direct the newly established Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centre.  The centre acts as a major focus of obstetric research within the UK, and facilitates the training of clinical and scientific researchers within the speciality.  Our research group in Manchester became the largest obstetric research group in Europe.

Pre-eclampsia: Almost 1 in 20 of these pregnancies are complicated by pre-eclampsia. This is a disease of late pregnancy characterized by the concomitant occurrence of hypertension and proteinuria. The condition is associated globally with 70,000-80,000 maternal and over 500,000 infant deaths annually. Additionally, epidemiological studies have demonstrated that pre-eclampsia is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases later in the mother’s life. A quarter of the babies born to mothers with pre-eclampsia are growth restricted and a third are premature. The child may have problems with neurocognitive development that can result in mild learning difficulties through to severe disabilities. Being born growth restricted also predisposes the child to cardiovascular disease as an adult.[

In pre-eclampsia there are demonstrable biologically active circulating factors, that are apparent well before the clinical presentation of the disease; nevertheless, there are currently no early pregnancy predictive tests for pre-eclampsia. Numerous candidate biomarkers (>200 studies so far) have been proposed for prediction of disease, including placental hormones, angiogenic factors, and lipids. However, none (nor any combination) has emerged with the requisite specificity and sensitivity to be of clinical use. Indeed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) systematic review assessed the usefulness of clinical, biophysical, and biochemical tests in the prediction of pre-eclampsia and concluded that there is no cost effective or reliable screening test for pre-eclampsia. As a consequence, without a screening test, clinicians are unable to offer either targeted surveillance or potential preventative therapies to those at greatest risk.

Metabolomics and pre-eclampsia: Metabolomic profiling is a powerful strategy for investigating the low molecular weight (bio)chemicals (metabolites) present in the metabolome of a cell, tissue, or organism. Its position as the final downstream product of gene expression enables the provision of a high-resolution multifactorial phenotypic signature of disease aetiology, manifestation, or pathophysiology.

Professors Philip Baker and Louise Kenny have pioneered the clinical exploitation of metabolomic technology for patient benefit. A decade-long collaboration funded by Science Foundation Ireland, British Heart Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Enterprise Ireland led to the discovery and validation of a unique set of metabolites, which, in combination with limited clinical data, has the potential to accurately predict pre-eclampsia in early pregnancy with unprecedented sensitivity and specificity. Metabolomic Diagnostics Ltd. is the innovative SME leading the commercialization of this breakthrough technology and the R&D of a prototype test utilising a platform capable of delivering robust, high throughput and economically viable clinical screening.  Liquid Chromatography Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectroscopy (LC-QQQ-MS) has been selected as the platform of choice. LC-QQQ-MS offers a single platform with a one-stage sample preparation and is amenable to the addition of robotic liquid handling. Moreover, LC-QQQ-MS facilitates quantification of biomarkers, is cheaper, is more robust, and has detection limits that are lower than for other mass spectrometry techniques. Consequently, LC-QQQ-MS technology is already being used in clinical labs around the world, for example in newborn screening programs\; this will streamline regulatory approval for adaptation for use in pre-eclampsia.