Andrea graduated in medicine (MBChB with overall honours) from Bristol University in 2002. She started her postgraduate training in general medicine in Exeter, Devon. After completing her MRCP she moved to Manchester where she was an anaesthetic and intensive care trainee. She trained in specialist respiratory in the Mersey deanery from 2007 – 2017. Andrea joined the Respiratory Infection Group in March 2011 as a Clinical Research Fellow in Respiratory Infection, funded by the National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centre (Royal Liverpool University and Broadgreen Hospitals Trust - RLBUHT). Her PhD was based at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and is entitled: Lower Respiratory Tract Infection in Adults; carriage, therapeutics and prevention, under the supervision of Prof Stephen Gordon, completed in 2017.
She has travelled to India to gain further TB experience within a developing country with Professor Peter Davies, having been awarded a British Thoracic Society (BTS) Travel sponsorship award. She was the chair of the BTS Specialist Trainee Advisory Group (STAG) 2011-2014, as well as a SpR representative on the Interstitial Lung Disease Specialist Advisory Group (ILD SAG) and workforce planning group. She was a central to the achievement of the Respiratory Research team at the RLBUHT winning the RLBUHT Directors’ Star/ Make a Difference - The Chief Executive’s Award in 2015. She was also awarded the prestigious Career Investigator Award from the British Lung Foundation at the British Thoracic Society Conference in December 2014 for her work on the Experimental Human Pneumococcal Colonisation (EHPC) model.
Andrea works in the Department of Clinical Sciences in the new Liverpool Life Sciences Accelerator (LLSA) Building. Her research focuses on respiratory infection, namely LSTM’s unique EHPC model as well as bronchiectasis, interstitial lung disease and research bronchoalveolar lavage. Andrea is PI on a number of pneumococcal challenge studies funded by a large MRC programme grant. She works closely with University Hospital Aintree and RLBUHT to encourage cross-Mersey research in patients and healthy volunteers (including phase 1 studies) in the MHRA accredited Clinical Research Unit at the RLBUHT and in the new Accelerator Research Clinic (ARC) at the LLSA. She is an experienced bronchoscopist having performed over 100 research bronchoalveolar lavages (BAL) independently, and set up a disposable research bronchoscopy service in the RLBUHT Clinical Research Unit which has led to much interest from industry in particular related to Phase 1 drug studies for novel antibiotics for pneumonia and IPF drugs.
In her clinical sessions at Aintree University Hospital she runs specialist clinics for patients with pneumonia and bronchiectasis. She is passionate about working towards improved pneumococcal vaccines globally.
Teaching
· LSTM MSc in microbiology
· ALS instructor
· Honorary Clinical Tutor University of Liverpool