Georgina Ferry interviews Lennard Lee, Academic Clinical Lecturer and Medical Oncologist, 19 January 2023.
Topics discussed include (00:00:49) early interest in medicine, studies at Cambridge, PhD at the Wellcome Trust in Oxford; (00:03:28) Junior group leader in Birmingham and training as a cancer doctor; (00:05:32) first awareness of COVID-19; (00:07:16) impact of the pandemic on cancer patients in Birmingham; (00:12:18) UK COVID Cancer Programme, work with Gary Middleton; (00:16:55) data results generated from the programme, publication of paper in the Lancet; (00:18:35) return to Oxford at the end of 2020; (00:20:51) lateral flow moonshot, work with Derrick Crook, Tim Peto and Sir John Bell, setting up diagnostic study; (00:31:49) work at the Department of Health on scale-up of lateral flow test programme; (00:34:49) reporting of results; (00:38:07) continuing interest in chemotherapy patients who were unprotected by vaccination; (00:40:15) The Forgotten 500K; (00:41:58) listening to and supporting the vulnerable, providing them with information, enabling them to exert their voice; (00:43:48) the risk to immunocompromised individuals; (00:47:07) influence on policy; (00:48:55) participation in Independent SAGE; (00:53:03) personal voice and use of Twitter to communicate information to the general public; (00:54:33) training in communication; (00:56:31) current priorities and area of work, including the development of a cancer vaccine; (00:59:17) personalised vaccines for cancer; (01:00:00) work ongoing at Oxford, including collaboration nationally; (01:01:50) personal threat from COVID-19; (01:03:20) redeployment to A&E; (01:05:09) personal and family experience of COVID-19 infection; (01:08:34) personal wellbeing derived from work undertaken during the pandemic; (01:09:34) changes in approach to work as a result of the pandemic.
