Executive Committee
UKAPTB’s executive committee functions as the main creative and operational forum for the group. The committee’s regular meetings and calls are open to any member of the network if they’d like to participate. Further information can be found in our Terms of Reference.
*** Join the Committee ***
*** We’re recruiting a Nurse Lead ***
Dr Jessica Potter is a Consultant in Respiratory Medicine and Clinical Lead of the TB Service at North Middlesex University Hospital NHS Trust in London.
Jess has worked in some of the busiest TB services in London over the past decade. In response to the experiences of TB survivors she spear-headed the website www.tbdrugmonographs.co.uk – a resource used to aid the prescription and monitoring of drugs used in all forms of TB. It is regularly accessed from countries across the world.
In 2019, she completed a PhD funded by the Medical Research Council UK in 2019 which used qualitative research methods to explore how migrants with TB access healthcare in a UK context from their own perspectives. More broadly her research explores how structural conditions shape peoples' experiences of healthcare access.
In addition, Jess is passionate about advocacy and campaigns to raise awareness about TB and to protect the healthcare rights of migrants with a range of grassroots organisations. In 2019 she was presented with the Champion award by Migrants Organise and UNHCR for some of this work.
Dr Jessica Potter
Chair
Marc is Professor of Medicine at University College London, and Consultant in Respiratory and HIV Medicine at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
He is Lead for TB Services at the Royal Free and Director of UCL-TB, UCL’s cross-disciplinary TB research grouping. He chairs the British Thoracic Society TB Advisory Group, and has served on national and international committees, including UK NICE TB Guideline Group and British HIV Association HIV/TB co-infection Working Party.
His research focuses on mycobacterial disease, respiratory infection and HIV.
Marc Lipman
Clinical Lead
Samara Barnes
Lived Experience Lead
Samara Barnes was diagnosed with active pulmonary TB in late 2015 and it was discovered she was also drug resistant a little while into her treatment. Until that point, Samara knew little about the illness apart from the fact that her Grandad had died of TB many years previously.
Samara has raised money for TB Alert and has been part of their peer supporter programme too. She has also studied and written papers on the Global disparities in TB treatment.
It is important for Samara to raise awareness of this illness, be an advocate for reducing the stigma surrounding it and to encourage decision makers in the UK to ensure they keep to their commitment of a year on year reduction of TB and contribute to the WHO's commitment to eliminate TB by 2035.
Samara works for a national children's charity and is also a borough and county councillor.
Vinny Wooding
Advocacy Officer and Treasurer
Vinny is our Senior Parliamentary Advocacy Officer for TB and also serves as the coordinator of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tuberculosis.
Before joining RESULTS UK, Vinny worked for the Chair of the International Development Select Committee, Homes England and the Labour Party. Alongside his full-time role, Vinny is also studying for an MSc in Political Thought at SOAS.
Dr Animesh Sinha
Research Lead
Dr Animesh Sinha is a HIV/TB/Hepatitis Advisor for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). He has worked in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in drug-resistant TB programmes and in the TB-PRACTECAL clinical trial.
His research interest includes TB elimination and evolving drug resistance. He is part of BETTER Project (Building Experience to Treat TB with Expanded Resistance) sharing clinical experiences in providing care for people with strains of TB that have resistance to bedaquiline, linezolid, the nitroimidazoles, and/or clofazimine.
He is currently involved in the global roll-out of 6-month MDR-TB treatment regimens.
Paul Sommerfeld
Executive Trustee, TB Alert
From 1998 to 2019, Paul Sommerfeld was Chair, and since then Executive Trustee, of TB Alert, a United Kingdom-based NGO with programmes in India and the UK, primarily focussed on community engagement in TB.
Also, since September 2019 he has been Chair of TB Europe Coalition (TBEC) a network of civil society TB activists across Europe and Central Asia (i.e. The WHO Europe region). In its early years, he led on building links between activists in Western Europe and those in the East. Then, using his original career skills in facilitation, he led numerous advocacy and capacity-building workshops.
Paul has been deeply involved in global health for 35 years – first leprosy, then TB, and also influenza; with a focus on community engagement, advocacy, and governance.
Also, he was once Chair of the then Advocacy, Communication & Social Mobilization Working Group of the global Stop TB Partnership.
He has had a long career in international not-for-profit organisations; and has also held several UK public appointments – Chair of a National Health Service trust for mental health services in two London boroughs, and as a lay member in the regulatory bodies for judges, barristers, osteopaths, and pharmacists.
Roo is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh working on Tuberculosis treatments patterns and the impact on patient outcome using mixed methods, experimental work, epidemiology and mathematical modelling.
Roo is passionate about health advocacy particularly for women and children in resource limited settings. She hopes to further understanding of treatment to support better outcomes for patients globally.
Roo (Nicola) Cave Communications Lead
Help join us in the fight against TB!
Please contact us if you’re interested in joining the UKAPTB Executive Committee.
