Prof Liam Smeeth, MBChB FRCGP FFPH FRCP MSc PhD FMedSci
Head of the Department of Non-Communicable Disease Epidemiology and Former Honorary Faculty at the Wellcome Sanger Institute
Alumni
This person is a member of Sanger Institute Alumni.
Liam Smeeth is Head of the Department of Non-Communicable Disease Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and deputy director of the new London Farr Institute for Health Informatics Research Centre. He works closely with the Human Genetics Faculty at the Sanger Institute.
Liam is an international leader in the use of electronic health records, completing ground-breaking work on drug effects, disease aetiology and the evaluation of interventions. Liam has made a number of important discoveries, for example establishing the variation in risk of vascular events in response to inflammatory exposures. His work on the MMR vaccine and autism was of central importance in demonstrating safety and led to a recovery in vaccine uptake. In recent years he has provided new evidence on the evolution of the non-communicable disease epidemic in low income countries, helping lead a new MRC funded international partnership for chronic disease research across 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. He has contributed substantially to advances in methodology, particularly in use of electronic health records for high quality research, an area he has led for more than a decade. He has received many grants from competitive sources and successfully supervised a large number of fellowships. His work has directly impacted policy and clinical practice for example through NICE, the MHRA and the FDA. Liam is also prominent in public engagement, for example as an advocate for research in the recent Care.Data debate.