ISTM

Dr Driskell holds one of the first Healthcare Scientist Fellowships awarded by the National Institute for Health Research under an initiative from the Chief Scientific Officer. The fellowship, for over £90,000 from September 2009, enables him to work on the INvestigation of ThE Root Causes of Excessive RepliCatE Pathology Testing (INTERCEPT) study. This aims to reduce the burden of unnecessary requesting in pathology, using diabetes as a model, by assessing of adherence to guidelines, patient perceptions of testing and clinical outcomes and then developing tools to combat the factors that drive unnecessary testing.

Dr Driskell's PhD at Manchester University examined the role of specific protein mediators in cellular activation of growth factor receptors. It led to publication of novel data in Nature Cell Biology. He worked on the design and development of a novel method to define normal cell behaviour. The technique used the transferrin receptor (TfR) and the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) as model receptors that are recycled and targeted for degredation respectively and looked at their seperation within the cells. This required the development of novel fluorescent microscopy techniques to monitor the movement and sorting of the receptors . Following the development of the assay, he then designed experiments to examine the effect of a range of interventions.

As part of a Masters in Clinical Biochemistry, Dr Driskell undertook a 6 month research project at Keele's Insitute for Science and Technology in Medicine (ISTM) under the supervision of Professor Tony Fryer. The project was related to the the functional assessment of a gene involved in several diseases, particularly asthma.

ISTM Research theme: Clinical & Diagnostic Science

Dr Owen Driskell's work as NIHR Research Fellow is on the INvestigation of ThE Root Causes of Excessive RepliCatE Pathology Testing (INTERCEPT) study. This aims to reduce the burden of unnecessary requesting in pathology, using diabetes as a model, by assessing of adherence to guidelines, patient perceptions of testing and clinical outcomes and then developing tools to combat the factors that drive unnecessary testing.  This Fellowship is supervised by Professor of Clinical Biochemistry, Prof Tony Fryer and a multi-disciplinary team comprising Ms Sharon Sutton (Diabetes UK Education Liaison Officer and Expert Patient), Dr Fahmy Hanna (Consultant Diabetologist), Dr Norma Carlin (Diabetes Champion & General Practitioner, Stoke PCT), Mrs Helen Ogden & Mr David Holland (Project Manager & Senior Data Analyst, National Pathology Benchmarking), Dr Roger Beech (Reader in Health Services Research, Keele University), Mr Richard Little, (Senior Research Fellow in Health Economics, Keele University), Prof Peter Jones (Professor of Medical Statistics, Keele University), and Mr Alan Tonge (Pathology Directorate Manager, UHNS).

Dr Driskell was part of a team that successfully bid for £75,000 NHS Health Foundation SHINE Funding to support the project “Managing Demand for Pathology Tests from General Practice: Generating Efficiencies, Maintaining Standards and Improving Patient Care”. His role is to carry out work to reduce the, often unexplained, variation in pathology test requesting patterns and promote consistency of practice and quality of care through education, innovation and collaboration.

Papers:

Dynein is required for receptor sorting and the morphogenesis of early endosomes Driskell, O.J., Mironov, A., Allan, V.J., Woodman, P.G. (2007) Nature Cell Biology 9: p113-120

Stratified use of new GFR estimating equations improves specificity in the assessment of chronic kidney disease. Driskell, O.J., Mahto, R., Fryer, A. A., Porcheret, M.E.P., and Hanna, F.W. [Submitted to the Quarterly Journal of Medicine]

Posters:

Aetiology of unilateral pleural effusion – Audit of specimen collection for diagnosis of transudates or exudates. Owen Driskell and Sarah Heap. (2008) Ann. of Clin. Biochem. 45 (Supplement 1): p117–118.

A cellular localisation approach to unlock the functional mechanism behind the role of the GSTP1 gene in asthma. Driskell, O.J., Pountain, S.J., Hoban P.R., and Fryer, A.A. (2008) Ann. of Clin. Biochem. 45 (Supplement 1): p129

Halting the electrophoresis snowball: an audit of electrophoresis requesting. Driskell, O. J., Wainwright, C., Moffat, S. and Fryer, A.A. (2007) Ann. of Clin. Biochem. 44 (Supplement 1): p118

The rise and fall of C-reactive protein: an audit of CRP requests. Hutton, H., Driskell, O., Drummond, H.S., Cadwgan, A., Gray, C., Carroll, L. and Fryer, A.A. (2007) Ann. of Clin. Biochem. 44 (Supplement 1): p119

Cytoplasmic Dynein in Endosomal Sorting. Owen Driskell, Viki Allan and Philip Woodman. EURESCO Conference, "Frontiers of cellular microbiology and cell biology: spatial and temporal dynamics of the endomembrane system" San Feliu de Guixols, Spain, 16-21 October 2004. (Poster Abstract) .

Motors in Endosomal sorting. Owen Driskell, Viki Allan and Philip Woodman. The Biochemical Society, BioScience 2004, Glasgow, July 2004 (Poster Abstract A304), http://www.biochemsoctrans.org/bst/bs2004/bs2004A304.pdf

Professional memberships:

• The Association for Clinical Biochemistry

• The Biochemical Society

• The British Society for Cell Biology: