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  1. Who we are
  2. Our team
  3. Research and Clinical Advisory Panel

Research and Clinical Advisory Panel

Our Research and Clinical Advisory Panel is a body made up of clinicians and researchers with special expertise in aplastic anaemia. We are exceptionally proud to have some of the leading experts in the country to support us. Via this new panel, we have been able to welcome even more clinical experts who provide us with an unprecedented range of expertise advising The AAT at the highest level. 

Stevie Tyler, CEO and Tracy Stephenson, our Trustee, sit on the panel as Lay Members. 

RCAP Members

Callum Tempest

After serving as the Chair of our Youth Board, Callum joined our Board of Trustees in August 2022

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Callum is Programme Manager for the Diocese of Leeds’ award-winning music programme, a charitable initiative that brings sustainable music-making opportunities to around 7,500 children and young people in state schools across Yorkshire. He is also Operations Consultant for the National Schools Singing Programme which is replicating the Diocese of Leeds model across the UK.


Callum was diagnosed with aplastic anaemia in 2020 whilst completing his degree in Economics at the University of Bristol. He received a stem cell transplant later that year and joined the AAT’s Youth Board – which he went on to Chair – whilst recovering. As a former patient, Callum is committed to supporting the AAT’s mission and ensuring fellow patients can access the support and treatment they need.

Callum is the AAT board's patient representative on the Research and Clinical Advisory Panel. 

Published: 19th December, 2022

Updated: 18th March, 2026

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Dr Austin Kulasekararaj

Austin is a consultant haematologist at King’s College Hospital, London and leads King's PNH Centre.

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Austin is a consultant haematologist at King’s College Hospital, London.

He has trained and worked at King's since 2004, undertaking research in molecular pathogenesis of MDS and aplastic anaemia. He specialises in bone marrow failures, myeloid malignancies and allogeneic bone marrow transplantation.

He also leads the King's PNH Centre, which is one of two NHS England-commissioned highly specialised services for PNH.

Published: 30th March, 2022

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Dr Bethany Mitchell

Bethany is a Consultant Paediatric Haematologist at Belfast Children's Hospital

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Bethany is a Consultant Paediatric Haematologist at Belfast Children's Hospital

Published: 30th March, 2022

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Dr Keith Wilson

Keith is a Senior Lecturer, Honorary and Consultant Haematologist, Clinical Lead for Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation, at the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.

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Keith is a Senior Lecturer, Honorary and Consultant Haematologist, Clinical Lead for Blood and Bone Marrow Transplantation, at the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.

Published: 11th May, 2018

Updated: 30th March, 2022

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Dr Morag Griffin

Morag is a consultant haematologist and honorary senior lecturer at St James Hospital Leeds.

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Qualified in 2006 from Dundee University completing haematology training in Sheffield, with an MSC in medical leadership concurrently. Joint clinical lead of the Aplastic anaemia and PNH service in Leeds. Active in clinical trials and having completed the EHA clinical research trials in the haematology programme, Ci and PI for aplastic anaemia and PNH clinics trials phase 1-3.


Member of the International PNH interest group, Severe aplastic anaemia working party

Published: 8th December, 2022

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Dr Sanjay Tewari

Sanjay is a Paediatric Haematologist at The Royal Marsden.

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Dr Sanjay Tewari completed his post-graduate training in paediatrics in India. 

After finishing his CCT in paediatrics, he did his haematology training in London, working at Royal Marsden and Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Dr Tewari was appointed as Paediatric Haematologist at The Royal Marsden in 2018. His special interests are bone marrow failure syndromes, myeloid neoplasms and chronic myeloid leukaemia.  He is a member of CML and aplastic anaemia working groups as well as the European Neuroblastoma Morphology working group. He is also the lead for paediatric leukaemias and the lead for paediatric haematological malignancy diagnostic services at The Royal Marsden.

Published: 30th March, 2022

Updated: 13th April, 2023

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Dr Sujith Samarasinghe

Sujith is a consultant paediatric haematologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London.

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Dr Sujith Samarasinghe is a consultant paediatric haematologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London.  He completed his medical training at Imperial School of Medicine, London in 1998. He did his paediatric haematology training at Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College Hospital, London. He was awarded a PhD in 2010 from University College London in the field of immunotherapy for leukaemia.

In 2011, Sujith was appointed as a consultant haematologist in Newcastle but returned to Great Ormond Street Hospital in 2014. His areas of expertise include childhood leukaemia and aplastic anaemia. He is the national lead for childhood aplastic anaemia and supportive care, and a co-investigator on two CAR T-cell studies in childhood leukaemia. 

Published: 18th May, 2020

Updated: 30th March, 2022

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Ellie Dawes, Deputy CEO and Head of Fundraising and Comms

Ellie is our Deputy CEO and has responsibility for our Fundraising and Comms

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Ellie has worked for The Aplastic Anaemia Trust since 2020, leading on Fundraising and Communications. In 2025, she was made Deputy CEO.

Ellie previously worked as Digital Engagement Manager at Blood Cancer UK, before spending five years in the world of international development, running comms and fundraising as part of the senior team at Child.org. 

Ellie loves food and once appeared on a TV cooking show! She's passionate about helping charities to be bold, ambitious and inspiring. You can email her at [email protected].

Published: 18th December, 2020

Updated: 3rd September, 2025

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Joe Kirwin, CEO

Joe joined the Aplastic Anaemia Trust in April 2025 as its new CEO

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Joe joined the AAT in April 2025 as its new CEO and brings with him many years of experience in charity leadership.  

Joe has joined us from Pancreatic Cancer Action where he was CEO for a number of years.  He is passionate about strategy development and implementation, policy and public affairs, volunteer management, fundraising, communications and delivering winning campaigns that make a tangible difference to people’s lives. 

Having just become a new father, Joe is spending much of his time knee deep in nappies!

You can contact Joe on [email protected] 

Published: 5th August, 2020

Updated: 22nd April, 2025

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Professor Alan Warren

Alan is Professor of Haematology at the University of Cambridge.

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Alan Warren is Professor of Haematology at the University of Cambridge.

He graduated from the University of Glasgow in Biochemistry (1983) and Medicine (1986) and trained in Haematology at the Hammersmith Hospital in London and at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge.

He gained his PhD in molecular biology in the laboratory of Terry Rabbitts at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge.

Alan is Clinical Lead for Bone Marrow Failure and Myelodysplastic Syndromes at Cambridge University Hospitals.

His lab discovered that defective assembly of ribosomes, the machines in all our cells that make protein, causes Shwachman-Diamond syndrome.

Alan was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2005.

Published: 30th March, 2022

Updated: 31st March, 2022

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Professor Ghulam Mufti (Chair)

Ghulam is the head of the department of haematological medicine at Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’s hospitals, King’s College London.

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Ghulam is the head of the department of haematological medicine at Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’s hospitals, King’s College London, with a team of 13 professors, 6 senior lecturers/lecturers and approximately 100+ research staff. In addition, Professor Mufti is the Clinical Director of Laboratories Sciences and a non-executive director of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. 


Ghulam has extensive clinical and research expertise in leukaemias, lymphomas and in particular myelodysplastic syndromes, for which he is internationally renowned. His particular area of research has focused on molecular aberrations in MDS/AML and the identification of novel therapies that include gene and cell-based therapies. He has published 400+ papers and chapters in scientific journals and textbooks on leukaemias and MDS.

He heads the research groups at King’s working on the molecular genetics of MDS/aplastic anaemia/AML and is a member of the working group that produced national and international guidelines on the treatment and prognosis of MDS. He is a member of the European Bone Marrow Transplantation Group and a founding member of the Board of the International Myelodysplastic foundation, for which his department at King’s College Hospital is a recognised Centre of Excellence. The department is also a centre of excellence for Leukaemia Lymphoma Research and is the largest allogeneic bone marrow transplant centre in the UK, and the only gene and cell-based therapies centre for myeloid leukaemia and allied diseases.

Published: 10th May, 2018

Updated: 30th March, 2022

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Professor John Snowden

John is a Consultant Haematologist and Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Programme at Sheffield Teaching Hospital.

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John trained as an undergraduate in the University of Leeds, and as a postgraduate in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. He has been Consultant Haematologist and Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) Programme in Sheffield, UK since 2002.

He has held the role of Clinical Lead for various NICE Guidelines and Chair of the NHS England Clinical Reference Group for BMT (2016-20). From 2017-20, he was Chair of the Intercollegiate Committee on Haematology to the Royal College of Physicians and Royal College of Pathologists. Since 2019, he has been co-Lead clinician for Haematology-Oncology in the NHS England Genomic Laboratory Hub (GLH) for North East & Yorkshire region. He is President of the British Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (2021-22). 

Internationally, John has a long association with the European Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) and the international accreditation organisation, ‘JACIE’, including JACIE Medical Director (2012-16) and Chair of the JACIE Committee (2015-20). He has been a member of the EBMT Board and Scientific Council as Autoimmune Diseases Working Party Chair (2016-20) and is EBMT Secretary (2020-24). 

John has contributed to the fields of BMT, haematology-oncology and autoimmunity with authorship of over 300 publications (Scopus H index >50), along with clinical trials, grant awards, educational meetings, teaching, supervision, examination, journal editorship and scientific peer review. He has been awarded honorary professorships by The University of Sheffield and University College London.

Published: 30th March, 2022

Updated: 31st March, 2022

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Professor Josu de la Fuente

Josu de la Fuente is a Consultant Haematologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Professor of Practice (Cellular and Gene Therapies) of Imperial College London.

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Josu de la Fuente is a Consultant Haematologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Professor of Practice (Cellular and Gene Therapies) of Imperial College London. He was appointed Director of the Paediatric Blood & Marrow Transplant Programme in 2006, specialising in transplantation for haemoglobinopathies and bone marrow failure, and being innovative in the use of alternative donors. He is the vice-chair of Paediatric Diseases Working Party of EBMT, a member of the steering committee of the BMT CTN 1507 trial Co-Director of the Vanderbilt Global Consortium for a Cure. He is an investigator and in the steering committee of a several gene therapy trials in sickle cell disease and thalassaemia.

After an initial period in adult medicine, Professor de la Fuente completed his general training in paediatrics in different hospitals in London and following membership of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, he trained in haematology at Imperial College and Great Ormond Street Hospital achieving membership of the Royal College of Pathologists. During this time, he developed an interest in red cell disorders, bone marrow failure and transplantation, including a period of basic research in human developmental haemopoiesis as an MRC Clinical Research Fellow leading to a PhD. He has also developed a unique clinical and research programme for Diamond Blackfan anaemia patients.

My main interests include novel therapies, in particular targeted, cellular and gene therapies and ensuring the needs of rare anaemias and bone marrow failure are represented, with particular attention to Diamond Blackfan anaemia.

Published: 30th March, 2022

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Professor Rod Skinner

Rod is a semi-retired paediatric and adolescent haemato-oncologist at Great North Children’s Hospital in Newcastle.

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Professor Rod Skinner is a semi-retired paediatric and adolescent haemato-oncologist. He is the clinical lead for long-term follow-up of childhood and adolescent cancer and leukaemia.

Prior to semi-retirement, Professor Skinner was also clinical lead of the Paediatric Haematology Bone Marrow Transplant service and cared for children with acute leukaemia, aplastic anaemia and rare paediatric haematological malignancies.

Professor Skinner’s clinical interests include long-term follow-up of individuals previously treated for childhood cancer or leukaemia, those who had bone marrow / stem cell transplants during childhood or adolescence, and childhood cancer survivorship.

Published: 30th March, 2022

Updated: 31st March, 2022

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Emotional Wellbeing support

Emotional Wellbeing support

Living with a rare bone marrow failure condition, or supporting someone who is can have a big impact on your emotional wellbeing. Our expert team are here to help you navigate these challenges and help you to feel less anxious and more in control. Read more

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Updated: 1st April, 2026

Author: Ellie Dawes

Register with The Aplastic Anaemia Trust

Register with The Aplastic Anaemia Trust

Are you living with aplastic anaemia, or a related condition like PNH, Fanconi anaemia, Dyskeratosis Congenita or Schwachman Diamond Syndrome? Or are you supporting a friend or family member who has? Please take a few minutes to register with us here. Read more

Published: 31st July, 2025

Updated: 4th February, 2026

Author: Ellie Dawes

Live in Wales? Write to your Senedd candidates and ask them to ensure patients have access to eltrombopag!

Live in Wales? Write to your Senedd candidates and ask them to ensure patients have access to eltrombopag!

On May 7th, the people of Wales go to the polls to elect new members of the Welsh Parliament. This election is an opportunity for those impacted by aplastic anaemia to raise the vital issue of fair access to medications for those living with rare diseases. Read more

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Updated: 16th April, 2026

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St Laurence Pastoral Centre
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