APF is a patient driven organisation, it is vital to us that our community is a safe space for all, regardless of background, sexuality, gender, disability, or race. We gain strength from the wide variety of backgrounds that people come with. We value your unique experience and want your voice to be heard.
Daniel Saxton
Daniel has a background spanning Charity Leadership, NHS and Private Healthcare Business Development, Corporate Governance, and Strategic Marketing and Communications. Daniel is responsible for leading APF in its mission while fostering a supportive, collaborative environment for our team and partners. His goal is to ensure that our charity is not only well-governed and financially sustainable but also highly effective in delivering impactful services to those in need.
Daniel is passionate about making a meaningful difference through charitable work. He works closely with our dedicated staff, volunteers, donors, and stakeholders to develop innovative solutions and support systems that truly meet the needs of those we serve.
Daniel’s approach is focused on collaboration, innovation, and long-term sustainability. By working together, he believes we can continue to drive progressive change, create efficiencies, and ultimately enhance the support available to those living with pulmonary fibrosis.
Stef Cormack
She became APF’s Head of Services in 2022, after working with the charity on a range of projects prior to that.
Stef's role focuses on leading our talented support team, who can really make a difference to people living with PF and their families.
Alison Stewart
Alison lives with family in a small village in North Lanarkshire, not too far from Glasgow.
Apart from a short spell where she returned to the civil service, Alison has been working in the voluntary sector for the past 16 years, supporting service users, their carers and families. Alison has also had the pleasure of working with volunteers, supporting them to make such huge difference to peoples lives.
Alison loves reading, walking the dogs and spending time with family. During lockdown, she completed a training course in celebrancy, so is now a qualified celebrant too!
Andy Bright
Andy’s motto ‘Never Give Up’ arose through his love of sport - he says: “When I became ill, I applied this mentality to the understanding and management of my condition and the impact on my family and work life. I have a wealth of passion, expertise, understanding and of course, first-hand experience, and relish the opportunity to help those who are suffering from this cruel disease. I have been involved in PF support groups now for over 6 years (West Bromwich and the PFTx transplant group) and have also raised awareness for organ donation.” Andy’s work experience includes operations and data management, sales and marketing, customer services and support, latterly with Birmingham City Council’s Adult Social Care team. In 2020 Andy received a Chamberlain Award for excellence. Read Andy's story.
Tel: 07508 857146
Email: andy@actionpf.org
Bradley Price
Cathy Jackson-Read
Cathy brings a wide range of skills and experience in supporting the growth and development of voluntary and community organisations and working in partnership with health and social care providers to improves services and support for patients and service users. She looks forward to working with APF support groups and health services across the Midlands, South Wales and the South West to enable people living with Pulmonary Fibrosis to live the best life possible.
Cathy enjoys walking on the Malvern Hills, spending time with family and friends and travelling.
Abigail Miller
After graduating from university, Abi pursued a career working within the charity sector. She brings to the APF team her extensive experience in digital communications, including social media management, email marketing and copywriting.
Chloe Hough
Chloe brings experience of finding out the needs of patientswith respiratory conditions, and problem-solving to meet these needs. Outsideof work, Chloe enjoys spending time climbing and hiking in the Peak District.”
Chloe Stevenson
Chloe’s role is to ensure the smooth day to day running of the support services department for individuals living with pulmonary fibrosis and their carer’s.
She is passionate about ensuring patients and carers are heard and have the correct information and support at the right time to enable them to have a good quality of life with PF.
Outside of work Chloe enjoys spending time with family, she has a son Ethan and also enjoys cooking and listening to lots of different types of music.
Clare Hodkinson
Clare's main role will be to support the charity’s grant funding programme, to champion the role of the PF community in the design and development of research, and to raise awareness of opportunities to participate in research.
Clare lives with pulmonary fibrosis herself and has cared for similarly affected family members. She very much enjoys supporting her local PF community as a Support Group committee member and is passionate about raising awareness. She loves to travel, and try out new experiences, with her husband and daughter. In precious moments of downtime, Clare loves to curl up with her latest crochet or knitting project and indulge in some zombie or sci-fi action and adventure.
Emily McIndoe
Emily brings varied experiences of working on charity education programmes.
With a PhD in history, Emily has a background in research and is passionate about putting lived experience at the forefront of education campaigns. In her spare time, she enjoys open water swimming and reading.
Emma Byrne
Emma ensures the smooth running of APF’s digital fundraising activities and working to resource and inspire APF’s amazing fundraisers! Emma loves working with a great team and speaking to lovely people who raise such amazing funds for APF.
Outside of work Emma spends her time with family, friends and a little dog called Charlie.
Email: Emmab@actionpf.org
Emma Pelling
Emma is responsible for raising awareness of pulmonary fibrosis among the media and public at large.
Emma enjoys working with the team and is particularly inspired by the stories of those living with pulmonary fibrosis and their determination to help others.
Outside of work, you’ll find Emma walking and cycling in the South Downs with her boisterous boys and border terrier!
Email: emma@actionpf.org
Emma McElroy
In her spare time, Emma enjoys hiking and being out in nature, cooking, painting, running and going to festivals. She's also a Website Editor and Social Media Volunteer for a cat charity, writing about cats that are ready for adoption, happy rehoming stories and charity fundraising events.
Jo Murch
She is excited to grow and develop APF’s befriending service and is passionate about the power of listening to bring people together and help people feel less alone and more understood.
In her spare time she enjoys reading, writing and sewing and playing with her two cats!
Jo Dallas
My journey started a long time back after spending long periods of time with my grandparents living with us as a family through their terminal years on with lung cancer and another heart failure, until then I was unsure of what career I wanted but my nan suggested I should be a nurse as I was kind and caring. I wanted to be a surgical nurse for a long time and qualified and moved into the fast pace of intensive care soon realising I wanted more interaction from my patients as sedated and ventilated tends to get you very little verbal response and whist you support the families and friends a lot and help to cure them of their illnesses you lose so much connection with them as a patient. This often left me wondering how they really were as we are often not what our families portray us as.
So, with me wealth of experience I moved to respiratory medicine miles away from where I expected by path to take me. I had the misfortune to become unwell with cancer which gave me a renewed outlook on my life, my career and how I respond to patients and their journey through their disease process, and soon realised the other side of the fence was a bad place to be and that I could try and make a difference, walking the mile in their shoes is a reality check…
I took a step back for a few years and worked between the acute trust as an ITU nurse and with a team supporting patients who have cardiac disease and found the awake and talking patients although more challenging, they were much better company and made me realise how insular I had become and how much I needed the human interaction as much as they did so I took the plunge and left the world of ITU.
I worked as a general respiratory nurse in the acute setting for many years, looking after patients with all different aspects of respiratory disease, but developed a keen interest in the world of ILD realising there was more to it than what I had learnt over the 15 years.
Having survived the pandemic physically I felt the need to give more back as the world of fibrosing lung disease was going to change. I found an opening at Guys and St Thomas’ to help support the team and develop the nursing side of the team.
I joined the team with what little was left of a nursing service post COVID and developed it to what it is today; with the support of the team both nursing and medical. I have now developed a fully cohesive and inclusive ILD CNS service, seeing all type of ILD Patients and families supporting their needs with clinics, in various forms running simultaneously covering anything from general follow up reviews for infusion therapy, blood monitoring and prescriptions to our new ambulatory oxygen assessment service within our one stop shop. Whilst managing a support helpline for ILD Patients meeting national targets for IPF patients including wholistic support to PR, oxygen and palliative care.
I started developing a palliative care pathway with our palliative team, allowing our patients to have quick access to pharmaceutical treatments with follow ups to ensure effectiveness and hope this will promote and improve palliative support as a lot of these patients have a short life expectancy and we know they have lost anything up to half of this by the time they get to meet an ILD specialist. I am hoping the team I have left behind will continue this and one day lead to them applying for GOLD standard palliative status and an even greater ambition would be to support this becoming a country wide initiative.
I worked closely with the APF charity as part of the patient pathway on many different projects over the last few years and instigated the attendance of the charity being ever present within the NHS chest clinic departments increasing support to patients where the NHS staff lack the time especially in those vital first few moments when given a diagnosis as we know how damaging internet searching can be to a patient’s physical and mental wellbeing if looking at incorrect information and APF were best placed to support this, also trying to connect more groups together with hybrid support groups in partnership with the local hospice to try and alleviate some of the myths and anxiety surrounding what hospices and their care entails.
I was a relatively novice when I joined the ILD world a few years ago although a large amount of general respiratory experience, I have now learnt a huge amount and so far, but feel the NHS is no longer the place to make change for me and that APF is somewhere I can make a difference. So, with that said I am passionate about PF and loving the journey so come along and join us for the ride and lets change the ILD world together, as united we are stronger.
Julia Stoward
Julia brings with her a wide range of transferable skills and experience and is a strong advocate for ensuring people with a disability lead their best possible lives; which she intends to utilise in her role as Support Network Coordinator- London and Southeast. Outside of work Julia enjoys entertaining and spending time with her family and friends, taking part in various sporting activities and has a passion for travelling.
Julie Cleary
After her military career, Julie then spent the next 24years working in a wide range of companies gaining experience in admin, facilities, fleet, finance and Payroll and she joins APF as our Finance and Payroll Officer. Julie is very excited to use her talents for such an amazing cause and has already fitted into the Peterborough office very well.
Julie has three daughters; Bethany (28), Rebecca (26) and Deanna (24). Her two eldest girls have flown the nest (both girls got married last year to their soul mates). Julie lives a happy life with her husband Dean, her youngest daughter Deanna, her mum Sue (who has her own annex), four wonderful, spoilt puppies and a snake called William Snakespeare.
Katherine Wright
Originally working in events and marketing, she began working in Individual Giving with a health service charity in 2021.
Kirstie Atkins
Her passion for research, along with her Dad living life to the fullest, whilst having IPF until he died in February 2023, is what drives her to make a positive difference to the PF community.
Kirstie loves being part of APF and working together with passionate colleagues who are all striving to stop fibrosis in its tracks. She is driven to raise awareness of not only PF, but also the opportunities for people affected by the disease to take part in research.
Outside of work, Kirstie enjoys yoga, following the PF research literature, and supporting her younger brother’s rugby career.
Lisa Murray
In her spare time, Lisa volunteers with her local Scouting Group and loves hunting for vintage jackets.
Naomi Gay
Naomi has worked for Mind and Rethink mental illness before moving into health research and setting up the patient involvement team at Cancer Research UK. Always eager to take on a new challenge, Naomi has also worked for the British Heart Foundation and Versus Arthritis and is eager to use this experience to partner with people affected by PF.
Natalie Martin
Natalie manages the Challenge and Community fundraising team, and uses data, insight and evidence to help shape the digital journey of our valued fundraisers. She makes sure APF is providing a range of innovative and exciting events and fundraising activities for our supporters to join in with.
In her spare time she enjoys spending time with her husband, son and rescue Schnoodles Peppa.& Barkley
Email: natalie@actionpf.org
Nicola Griffiths
Having worked in the voluntary sector for 10 years providing support services for children, adults, and their carers, with disabilities. Prior to this Nicola worked in Public Health NHS roles designing and monitoring smoking cessation services and campaigning for tobacco control policies.
Nicola’s role at APF is to help extend the reach of APF, ensure we provide a comprehensive support group network and access to the best possible care and support for people living with Pulmonary Fibrosis.
Outside of work Nicola enjoys spending time with her family and friends and being creative with food in the kitchen.
Jonathan Dawson
Jonathan Dawson brings over 20 years of experience in the charity sector to his role as Director of Finance and Operations.
With a deep passion for using resources to create meaningful impact, Jonathan has dedicated his career to ensuring that every dollar is maximized to support the causes he cares about. Outside of work, he enjoys the thrill and challenge of mountain biking, and he loves to travel and see new places, finding inspiration and balance in the great outdoors.
Pauline Baird
As a nurse for 35 years Pauline feels incredibly privileged to be able to offer support through the helpline. She says she has met many amazing people with PF who are so positive about the support they have received from APF and have said it feltlike a lifeline. She feels incredibly lucky to work with such a wonderfully supportive team who put everything into making a difference for people with PF. Pauline has personal experience of caring for a relative with a life limiting condition and having oxygen therapy at home, Nasopharyngeal suction and enteral feeding – this insight is what drives Pauline to support the APF community. Pauline is also a bereavement volunteer with Cruse Bereavement Support.
Pauline enjoys long walks with her Labrador and spending time with her family. In her spare time, she plays in a Ukulele band who perform at village fetes and care homes.
Rukhsana Kosar
Rukhsana enjoys long walks, spending time with family and reading.
Sally Birkin
Sally has always been passionate about helping others, previously working in customer service roles during her career. She loves the opportunities her role at APF presents.
Outside of work Sally enjoys spending time with her 2 daughters Megan and Daisy, and several cats. She also loves history and likes to collect stamps, in her passport.
Sarah Seymour
Sarah enjoys raising funds to help charities grow their services to reach more people; she is motivated by the impact funds will have on the well-being of patients and carers. Outside of work Sarah is happiest on a country walk with her 4 year old daughter or catching up on reading for her book club!
Email: sarah@actionpf.org
Sharon Moon
A former Fundraising Support Co-ordinator at APF, Sharon now supports our individual givers and in memory donors.
Sharon enjoys working with our individual givers and understands their motivations to support APF in achieving its key ambitions. She likes working alongside fundraising team and connecting with a wide range of supporters.
Outside of work Sharon splits her time between Ware in Herts and South London. She enjoys yoga, swimming and is a qualified netball umpire.
Email: sharon@actionpf.org
Tanya Airewele
Within Tanya's world as a HR and Operations Coordinator – she is here to ensure everything runs smoothly behind the scenes. From managing employee onboarding and off boarding to coordinating day-to-day operations… you could say she has the magic touch.
Her aim is to continue creating a positive and productive work environment for everyone because after all, what is better than waking up to a job that you absolutely love?
Outside of work, Tanya enjoys cooking and trying (mainly tasting) new recipes!
Wendy Adams
Wendy studied Psychology at undergraduate level and has a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience. Outside of work, she loves spending time with her family going climbing, kayaking, mountaineering, and biking. She has a close family link to pulmonary fibrosis and understands what it means to care for someone with a life-changing diagnosis.
Wendy Jones
With the help of APF and her local respiratory nurse she set up a local support group and believes passionately in caring for and supporting patients and carers on their journey with Pulmonary Fibrosis. Her aim is to enable everyone who needs it, access to the right support services at the right time – wherever they live.
Outside of work, Wendy loves cycling and walking her dog in the beautiful Northwest area of the UK, and spending time with her son and friends.
Dr Michael Stubbins
Mike lost his Mum, Anne, to Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis(IPF) in late 2017, after a brave 10 year battle with both the original diagnosis & subsequently the disease itself. Mike is honoured to serve as an APF trustee in memory of Anne and is driven to utilise the skills &experience he has gained throughout his career to help to increase APF’s links with the Pharma / Biotech / healthcare industry and to work towards the acceleration of PF research & education more broadly.
Steve Jones
Steve was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in 2008 and lived with the disease for eight years before receiving a single lung transplant in March 2016.
Now retired, Steve is a member of the Papworth Hospital Pulmonary Fibrosis Support Group. He is also a Parish Councillor.
He serves on the board of the European IPF Federation (EU-IPFF) and the council of the European Lung Foundation. He believes that international collaboration will bring greater benefits to people affected by pulmonary fibrosis in the UK and beyond.
Dr Beckie Lang
Beckie sadly lost her mum, Trish, and two other relatives to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Her mum was fortunate to receive a single lung transplant but died three years later from transplant complications.
Beckie has been pleased to watch the charity grow over the last few years and has taken part in fundraising too. She is delighted to be a trustee and contribute to the development of the charity.
Dr Helen Parfrey
She also has an interest in the genetics of familial and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
Dr Parfrey is a strong supporter of patient advocacy having established the pulmonary fibrosis patient support group at Papworth Hospital. She was a founding trustee of APF.
Matthew Suddart
Matthew was elected as a Local Councillor at the age of 18, inspired to try and make his community a better place for all. He brings a knowledge of local and national government that will be valuable for the charity.
Matthew lost his Grandad Des to Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis at the age of 18. Des, a former steelworker was an inspiration to Matthew and taught him so many life lessons and values that will remain for the rest of his life. Matthew is honoured to serve as a trustee at APF in his Grandads memory.
In particular, Matthew wants APF to help support young carers in the future and is passionate that patients and families are better supported when receiving the news of a pulmonary fibrosis diagnosis.
Matthew is a keen runner and ran his first ever marathon for Action for Pulmonary Fibrosis in 2017.
Dr Simon Hart
His research interests include inflammation and the immune system in pulmonary fibrosis and sarcoidosis.
Stephen Morgan-Hyland
He is a Director of a leading planning and economics consultancy in Manchester, having previously been Commercial Planning Director at an internationally renowned property agency. He is involved with some of the largest commercial development projects in the UK.
Stephen lost his dad, Tony, to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in 2017. Tony had suffered with the condition for five years, but he was not diagnosed until it was too late for any long-term treatment.
Stephen is honoured to serve at a trustee for Action for Pulmonary Fibrosis in his dad’s memory. He is driven to raise awareness of pulmonary fibrosis in the interests of both ensuring that clinical advances continue to be achieved and that early diagnosis is made in as many cases as is possible.
Stephen is a keen runner and often competes in races flying the Action for Pulmonary Fibrosis flag.
Wendy Dickinson
Wendy was a newspaper and radio journalist for many years before moving to the BBC as a drama publicist. She then worked for a leading UK family support charity as Communications Manager. She has published several factual books, including a biography of her late father. Based on her personal experience, Wendy believes that whilst the patient should always be at the heart of everything APF does, support for the whole family is also hugely important. She is passionate about investment in research and enjoys visiting support groups to learn about the real experiences of patients and families.
Professor Nick Wareham
He studied Medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School and Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Cambridge University, England. In 1992-3 he was a Harkness Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health. After research fellowships at the University of Cambridge, he took up the Directorship of the MRC Epidemiology Unit when it was founded in 2003. He is principal investigator of the EPIC-Norfolk study, the EPIC-InterAct project, the Fenland cohort and the ADDITION trial. His main research interests are in understanding the aetiology of type 2 diabetes, particularly in generating understanding about the interplay between genetic, developmental and behavioural risk factors. He also researches strategies for the early detection and prevention of diabetes, including individual and societal level interventions. He is the Director of the UKCRC Centre for Diet and Activity Research (CEDAR) and the NIHR Global Health Group on Diet and Activity Research (GDAR).
Andrew Wilson
He became a licensed lay minister in the Church of England, specialising in community ministry. He helped to establish a charity to house destitute asylum seekers as its first chair. Since then he has become an experienced charity trustee and chair. All the charities he has volunteered with have supported people who are disadvantaged by their situation, whether difficulties with asylum claims, extreme isolation or more generally those on the margins of society. Most recently, he has just retired as chair of FareShare Midlands, and is about to retire from another small charity board. In his spare time, he enjoys music. He used to be a choral singer, but PF has rather put paid to that, so he’s now concentrating on his cello and exploring some orchestral and chamber repertoire. With Lynda, his wife, he enjoys travelling, food and wine, and can still manage walks up hills, if rather slower than he used to be!
Elizabeth Bray
Over the last few years, the magnificent support from fundraisers across the UK has enabled APF to grow in to a strong and effective charity and Elizabeth looks forward to continuing to support its development.
Dr Richard Allen
He completed a Mathematics and Statistics BSc at the University of York and Medical Statistics MSc at the University of Leicester.He is a work package lead on the DEMISTIFI consortium investigating the genetics of multi-organ fibrosis and in July will take a lecturer position at the University of Leicester and continue his research into the genetics of progressive pulmonary fibrosis.
Suzanne Barrie
She loves her job and all the challenges it brings and has a strong passion for continued development and improvement of patient care. This is partly what encouraged her to join APF as a member of the Research Review Panel and OneVoicePanel, to help support and try to improve the patients journey.
Suzanne’s dad sadly passed away in November 2023 from IPF and this highlighted to Suzanne the need for more awareness and support for this condition.
Outside of work, Suzanne is married, with 3 young boys. She enjoys keeping busy, spending time with family and friends, travelling and training their new golden retriever puppy. She is actively involved in School and Playgroup committees in her local community and if the puppy training goes well, is hoping for her to become involved as a volunteer Therapet for Charity.
Susan Hall
I live in Cambridge and am married with four children. I am a fierce advocate of patient support groups most especially for patients like myself living with serious disease and high symptom burden. Having joined my local PF support group a few years after diagnosis , I progressed to Deputy Chair and am now Chair of the Papworth Hospital Pulmonary Fibrosis Support Group.
In addition, I am a Registered Nurse and am fortunate enough to have been able to continue in clinical nursing following shielding through the pandemic ,working in the Transplant Unit at Cambridge University Hospital.
Jeremy Dearling
Jeremy has experience at all stages of the research cycle for applicants, funders and as a team member. He has a passion for sharing his knowledge and experience of involvement with researchers, and people new to lay review, and find this very rewarding. He was motivated to get involved with the work of Action for Pulmonary Fibrosis, after a dear friend was diagnosed with the condition. Jeremy looks forward with great enthusiasm to contributing to the work APF does to support PF research.
Professor Ling-Pei Ho
Her research programme focuses on the interface between immune mechanisms of lung injury and dysrepair (fibrosis) and development of new medicines. She set up the Oxford Sarcoidosis Clinical Service, and currently leads the clinical service. She is also Chair of the NIHR Respiratory Translational Research Collaboration network, current member of a NHSE Policy Working Group on refractory Sarcoidosis, advisory panel for ASPIRE (a NIHR UK Consortium for Acute Respiratory Infection Diagnosis and Management) and BIOREME (UK wide Biophysical Models in Respiratory Medicine). She has an H index of 42 and published more than 90 original papers.
Melanie Felton
For several years Melanie has enjoyed sitting on a Respiratory Lay Advisory Group, reviewing research projects for funding approval from a patient perspective. She retired in October 2023 after spending 20 years running a medical legal practice for a plastic surgeon, reviewing medical papers for research and articles for surgical text books. Prior to this, Melanie worked as a general science lecturer at a College of Further Education in Lancashire, teaching microbiology and food science to all students and all levels of food hygiene to the general public and students on behalf of the local Environmental Health Department to both students and general public involved in food. Her work also included working in local prisons, giving inmates the opportunity to gain recognised certification to help get a job on release.
Professor Stefan Marciniak
I studied medicine at the University of Cambridge as a member of the Cambridge MB/PhD programme. After junior medical posts in London,Cambridge, and Edinburgh, I moved to New York as a cell biology post-doc at NYU for three years. On returning to the UK in 2005, I completed my training in respiratory medicine and in 2008 became an honorary respiratory consultant in Cambridge, while establishing a research group in the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR) to study lung diseases caused by protein misfolding. This is when I established the Cambridge Pneumothorax Clinic to improve care and facilitate research of disorders associated with pneumothorax.
Other roles:
- National lead for familial pneumothorax for the 100,000 Genomes Project
- Lead for the NHS Rare Disease Collaborative Network (RDCN) in familial pneumothorax
- Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge
Professor Ann Millar
Special interests in mechanisms of lung injury and repair related to clinical practice and expertise in interstitial lung disease.
Qualified in Liverpool and trained in General and Respiratory medicine in Liverpool and London.
Professor Chris Scotton
Chris studied Natural Sciences in Cambridge before embarking on a PhD at Cancer Research UK, followed by a Marie Curie fellowship in Milan - all focusing on tumour immunology. On returning to the UK in 2004, Chris took a segue into lung research working with Professor Rachel Chambers and the late Professor Geoff Laurent at UCL Respiratory, investigating interstitial lung diseases, and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in particular. Like many people, Chris had never before heard of IPF, but rapidly came to realise the true value of working to understand this incurable disease. His research at UCL focused on innate immunity, coagulation and cellular/molecular biology; this was supported by career development fellowships from first the British Lung Foundation and subsequently the MRC. Chris moved from his role as a Principal Research Fellow at UCL to take up a Senior Lectureship in Exeter in 2014. Chris is an Associate Professor in Respiratory Biomedicine. In his spare time, Chris was also the Chairperson of the British Association for Lung Research from 2017 - 2021, has sat on the science & research committees of the British Lung Foundation and the British Thoracic Society, and is an Associate Editor of Thorax.
Albert (Al) Hinde
Al initially started his career as a research engineer in Aero Fuel and Hydraulic Systems. He later changed career pathways and moved into management and supervisory training in production engineering environments. Later Al progressed into health and safety, and spent the remaining 30 years of his career in various safety management and training roles. Throughout Al's career he developed many safety campaigns and training programmes designed to change attitudes of those at risk from the hazards they encounter. He is the co-author of “The Health and Safety Handbook for Voluntary and Community Organisations”
Al firmly believes that the most successful route to finding solutions to better treatment for pulmonary fibrosis and ultimately a cure, will be when “the people endeavouring to solve the problem, work with those who are affected by the disease”.
Al's main hobby is gardening, which he still manages to enjoy with help from loved ones.
Professor Gisli Jenkins
His research focuses on the mechanisms by which injury leads to scarring in the lung. Lung scarring is the central process leading to disability and death in people with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. It also occurs in diseases such as chronic asthma where it promotes airway remodelling and impaired lung function.
Professor Jenkins’ research work is funded by the National Institute of Health Research and organisations such as the Wellcome Trust, the Medical Research Council, charities and pharmaceutical companies.
He is leading the UK’s first James Lind Alliance Research Priority Setting Partnership for Pulmonary Fibrosis starting 2020. He was a founding trustee of the charity.