Professional background

David trained in anaesthesia and intensive care medicine and joined the team in 2010. He leads the successful Critical Care Clinical Trials Team which are recognised as one of the highest performing teams within the UK and capable of performing on a global level. They have run over 35 clinical trials, specialising in early phase interventions in areas such as sepsis and ARDS with global firsts, high recruitment rates and data quality. However, he feels the lack of progress in this area has been hampered by the diagnostic uncertainty that the clinician and researcher frequently face. He is co-applicant on several major grant awards aimed at improving patient monitoring, detecting infection and the associated pathogen with significantly higher confidence and speed than is currently possible.

Along with Drs Harris, MacCallum and Bonnici, he also co-leads two of the most exciting healthcare data projects in the UK, INFORM and the NIHR Critical Care Health Informatics Collaborative. These projects aim to create IT capabilities with an unparalleled level of detail, capable of answering complex clinical and research questions.

David is also the clinical lead for the Patient Emergency Response and Resuscitation Team (PERRT) and is the critical care link for the Hyper-Acute Stroke Unit and the Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell therapy programme.

Research interests

Clinical and Data Science research. Particular interest in infection diagnostics, pathogen detection and sepsis management,

Publications

Selected publications:

  • Ranieri VM, Pettilä V, Karvonen MK, Jalkanen J, Nightingale P, Brealey D, Mancebo J, Ferrer R, Mercat A, Patroniti N, Quintel M, Vincent JL, Okkonen M, Meziani F, Bellani G, MacCallum N, Creteur J, Kluge S, Artigas-Raventos A, Maksimow M, Piippo I, Elima K, Jalkanen S, Jalkanen M, Bellingan G; INTEREST Study Group. Effect of Intravenous Interferon ?-1a on Death and Days Free From Mechanical Ventilation Among Patients With Moderate to Severe Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2020 Feb 17
  • Pickkers P, Mehta RL, Murray PT, Joannidis M, Molitoris BA, Kellum JA, Bachler M, Hoste EAJ, Hoiting O, Krell K, Ostermann M, Rozendaal W, Valkonen M, Brealey D, et al. Effect of Human Recombinant Alkaline Phosphatase on 7-Day Creatinine Clearance in Patients With Sepsis-Associated Acute Kidney Injury: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2018 Nov 20;320(19):1998-2009
  • Palmer E, Post B, Klapaukh R, Marra G, MacCallum NS, Brealey D, Ercole A, Jones A, Ashworth S, Watkinson P, Beale R, Brett SJ, Young JD, Black C, Rashan A, Martin D, Singer M, Harris S. The Association between Supraphysiologic Arterial Oxygen Levels and Mortality in Critically Ill Patients. A Multicenter Observational Cohort Study. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2019 Dec 1;200(11):1373-1380
  • Gordon AC, Perkins GD, Singer M, McAuley DF, Orme RM, Santhakumaran S, Mason AJ, Cross M, Al-Beidh F, Best-Lane J, Brealey D, et-al. Levosimendan for the Prevention of Acute Organ Dysfunction in Sepsis. N Engl J Med. 2016 Oct 27;375(17):1638-1648
  • Vincent JL, Brealey D, Libert N et-al. Rapid Diagnosis of Infection in the Critically Ill (RADICAL), a multicenter study of molecular detection in bloodstream infections, pneumonia and sterile site infections. Critical Care Medicine. 2015
  • Yui S, Bercades G, Muzslay M, Blackburn E, Ali S, Smyth D, Macklin A, Ryu JH, Bassett P, MacCallum N, Brealey D, Wilson P. Assessment of a rapid diagnostic test to exclude bacteraemia and effect on clinical decision-making for antimicrobial therapy. Sci Rep. 2020 Feb 20;10(1):3122