Bright Red Research Fellow, 2022
Haematology specialist trainee at Newcastle University, researching lymphoma.
Keir Pickard’s Story
Keir received six months of Bright Red support to start his PhD with Dr Laura Jardine, a Clinical Lecturer at Newcastle University and Consultant Haematologist at Newcastle Hospitals.
This was a back-up while he waited to hear from the Medical Research Council about a Fellowship. He was successful, winning funding of more than £350,000 to cover all three years of his PhD — which meant the Bright Red funding returned to the charity to support another Fellowship.
Based at the Biosciences Institute in Newcastle University, Keir has set up a project to characterise brain lymphomas using techniques that can analyse every single cell in a tumour and its local environment, individually.
6 months
£350k+
3 years
I am a haematology specialist trainee in the North East and I am passionate about improving the care of patients with haematological malignancies. My area of interest is lymphoma, and a Bright Red grant has supported me to dedicate myself full time to discovery research in this area. I am located in the Biosciences Institute in Newcastle University and I have set up a project to characterise brain lymphomas using techniques that can analyse every single cell in a tumour and its local environment, individually. The support of Bright Red will allow me to apply for a full PhD fellowship to develop my project, which will identify pathways and interactions that the tumour depends upon — which I hope will become targets for new therapies.
It is increasingly difficult to obtain funding as an early-career researcher to afford the breathing space and time to finalise a research project plan and apply to competitive national funding bodies; for trainees in the north-east, Bright Red is a vital source of this funding. There have been many Government reports which have recently highlighted the drop-off in numbers of clinical academics, which is not good for the NHS and not good for patients. Therefore, Bright Red has a key role to play in reversing this decline and making sure that patients in the north-east get access to the best treatments available.
Keir Pickard
Research published by Keir and his colleagues, made possible in part by Bright Red funding.
Cutaneous T cell lymphoma atlas reveals malignant TH2 cells supported by a B cell-rich tumor microenvironment
Li R, Strobl J, Poyner EFM, … Pickard K, … Teichmann SA, Haniffa M, et al. Nat Immunol. 2024;25:2320–2330. doi: 10.1038/s41590-024-02018-1
International Prognostic Score for Nodular Lymphocyte-Predominant Hodgkin Lymphoma
Binkley M, Flerlage E, Savage K, Akhtar S, … Pickard K, … Eichenauer D, Hoppe R, et al. J Clin Oncol. 2024. doi: 10.1200/JCO.23.01655
The influence of immunodeficiency, disease features, and patient characteristics on survival in plasmablastic lymphoma
Di Ciaccio P, Polizzotto M, Cwynarski K, Burton C, Awachana J, Bower M, … Pickard K, Hamad N, et al. Blood. 2024;143(2):152–165. doi: 10.1182/blood.2023021348
Location, location, location: mapping the lymphoma tumor microenvironment using spatial transcriptomics
Pickard K, Stephenson E, Mitchell A, Jardine L, Bacon CM. Front Oncol. 2023;13:1258245. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2023.1258245
Diagnostic uncertainty presented barriers to the timely management of acute thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura in the United Kingdom between 2014 and 2019
The HaemSTAR Collaborators. J Thromb Haemost. 2022;20(6):1428–1436. doi: 10.1111/jth.15681
A single 1 g/kg dose of intravenous immunoglobulin is a safe and effective treatment for immune thrombocytopenia
Results of the first HaemSTAR ‘Flash-Mob’ retrospective study incorporating 961 patients. HaemSTAR Collaborators. Br J Haematol. 2021. doi: 10.1111/bjh.17692
Blood and immune development in human fetal bone marrow and Down syndrome
Jardine L, Webb S, Goh I, Londono M, Reynolds G, Mather M, … Pickard K, Teichmann S, Haniffa M, et al. Nature. 2021;598:327–331. doi: 10.1038/s41586-021-03929-x
Bright Red funding gives promising researchers like Keir the time and space to get their work off the ground — and keeps world-class blood cancer care here in the north of England.