THI Role

Chairman of the Trinity Helath Ireland Committee

Current Job

Principal, St Hilda’s College, Oxford Univesity,  Chair-elect, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) (UK)

Career History

Gordon Duff studied Medicine at Oxford and St Thomas's Hospital, London, where he also gained a PhD in Neuropharmacology. Following postgraduate medical training, he held junior faculty posts at Yale Medical School and the Hughes Institute of Molecular Immunology. He joined Edinburgh Medical School in 1984, and in 1990 took up the post of Florey Professor of Molecular Medicine at Sheffield where he was Faculty Research Dean and Director of the Division of Genomic Medicine. He was Chairman of the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency before taking up his current post as Principal of St Hilda’s College, Oxford.

Research

With research interests in inflammation, cytokines and genetics, he has published research articles, book chapters and patents in these areas, as well as govt. reports on medicines and their regulation. He is founding editor of the international research journal 'CYTOKINE', advisory editor to the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) Journal, and Past-President of the International Cytokine Society.  Current citation index: http://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=s8R73YMAAAAJ&view_op=list_works

Advisory /Committees

He has served on SABs in the UK, Europe and the US.  Previously Chairman of the UK's Committee on Safety of Medicines and its Biological Sub-committee, he became inaugural Chairman of the UK's Commission on Human Medicines in 2005. He was Chairman of the Secretary-of-State's Expert Scientific Group on Phase One Clinical Trials following the 2006 disaster at Northwick Park Hospital. From 2002 to 2009 he was Chairman of the UK's National Biological Standards Board, overseeing the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, including the National Stem Cell Bank. He is an advisor on Biological Medicines to the EU, and was Chairman of the UK's Scientific Pandemic Influenza Advisory Committee. In 2009, he was appointed Co-Chair of the UK Govt's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE). He was an independent governor of Manchester Academic Health Science Centre. In 2010 he reported on the UK's National Organ Donor Register at request of Secretary-of-State. He is an Honorary Fellow of St Peter's College, Oxford, Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of Edinburgh and London (Croonian Lecturer) and Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was awarded Honorary Fellowship of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, Honorary Fellowship of the British Pjharmacological Society, a Doctorate (Honoris Causa) by Edinburgh University, and a Knighthood for services to the Public Health.

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