So could you start by saying your name and what your current position is?
Sure. I'm Dr. Leonard Lee. I'm a medical oncologist.
I'm on I'm. I'm on independent sage. Um, I practice as a lecturer at the University of Oxford.
Um, and I also work at NHS England within the cancer programme.
So you've got clinical teaching and administrative responsibilities and even policy and policy and academic journals at the moment.
So it's not where I expected to be in any way, shape or form.
There you go. Let's find out about that.
So take me back to when you first thought of becoming a doctor and and what your main kind of staging points have been between then and now.
And so I guess I always might be a doctor because you generally have the connection with someone.
And not only do you have the connection, but you have the ability to change their life, make it a lot better.
Um, I really my parents steer me very clearly away from medicine, saying that it's a very difficult career, it's very hard.
And I think and my dad was one particularly who tried to push me away from it.
But actually, it's like a moth to the flame. Really. I wanted to help.
This is what I was good at. This is how my mind works. And and I found a necessity.
And I found and I'm so lucky. I landed up in a career where I can gently make people feel happy and they want to see me.
And I can support them in the hardest times in life because they've got cancer.
And it's perfect for me and the ability to help at many levels.
Academic teaching clinical policy has has made it a wonderful career today.
So where did you study medicine initially? And so I was an undergraduate Cambridge,
and I transferred across Oxford and much of my career has been Oxford with the Harvard Skin Sound in London, too.
And you you've done both your full clinical training, but you also did Dphil, is that correct?
Yes. I'm one of these hybrid doctors where not only do you practice medicine,
but you also have the really just a fantastic opportunity to do research at the same time.
There's not many of us,
but I've also been running down the academic pathway to doing my Ph.D. at the Wellcome Trust in Oxford and continue my research as a lecturer.
Mm hmm. And what was the subject of your Ph.D.?
Oh, completely. Nothing related. The way I find it. That path, actually.
And it was. It was mouse. It was looking at what caused metastasis in mouse models of cancer.
So I was dissecting out the genes which are causing the cancer to spread in mouse mice and trying
to target them to stop it happening and to really molecular really mouse related and completely.
Yeah, I mean that was where I was going to be dissecting out the genetics of bowel cancer.
So yes, so the but that's, you know,
that's to do with the fundamental understanding of cancer so that that would have had translational opportunities further down the line.
So so how did your your focus change after that?
So, I mean, I think the pandemic has been terrible.
But before we get to the pandemic, so that actually we should be.
So which year? What year did you finish your your dphil?
2017. Okay. Yes. Yes. So between then and 2020, what were you doing?
So I got headhunted. And so after my PhD, I got headhunted to go up to be a junior group leader in Birmingham.
And I started my and I switched at that time point because before that I was more of a generalist, but then I switched into medical oncology.
And Birmingham's a fantastic place because it's it's very diverse.
You've got a very busy healthcare system on the edge of delivering what's possible.
And I thrived on this actually a high throughput service, seeing so many people across the region as far as Wales.
And that's why I started my training as a cancer doctor. And so that was mostly clinical, what you were doing.
It was a mixture actually, and it was a split 5050.
So half the time you were going onto the wards,
seeing people with cancer treating their complications and and helping them if they got side effects from their drugs.
And the other half you go across the lab pipetting. Um, teaching PhD students, teaching students, um,
doing all the genetic sequencing and processing samples so for a week and they've
got fantastic says to me Birmingham the hospital is like a multi over ten floors
gleaming glass building and next door you've got all the universe and you then
cross across the green with a winding path and it's only like a five minute walk.
And you've got all the labs which are shiny glass fronted and completely different atmosphere.
Um, the hospital, which is all fast delivery folks get people through and the labs where everything's clean,
perfect, you're doing all perfectly high standards.
And that was. And. The focus up over there in terms of be able to cross a road and then crossing,
putting on different hats, but both of them making their differences in different ways.
Mm hmm. And how did you when did you come back to Oxford?
And so I came back to Oxford at the end of 2020.
Oh, right. So. Okay, so we've got to go. Goodbye, then. So. Okay, we'll take a step back and I'll ask the question I ask everybody.
Which is it? When did you first hear that there was something going on in Lucan and come to realise that it might be a global pandemic?
Um, it was the news and I think and I picked this up and I shared it to my family, my friends, and I said, I have a bad feeling about this.
And many of us in the scientific community did. We knew in January that this was bad.
You look at the spreading, you look at what's happening there.
And we knew, but there were attempts at that. Many people just said, no, this has happened many times before.
There's never been a pandemic. How can this possibly the case?
But I knew it was coming and do that.
Excuse me. I mean, I hope this isn't a bad question to ask, but you obviously have Chinese heritage.
Yes. Did that mean you still you do have relatives in China?
So my my heritage is interesting because my grandparents from China,
they moved across to Malaysia and I was born here and because my parents came across there to study.
Um, so I didn't really have that link to China, but I did know that actually this is where this is happening.
Things can happen, it can cross from species. And when it does, if it is as infectious as it was, it could be quite bad.
I remember meeting with some friends with children and I was saying, Look,
I think you guys should prepare because this is going to change things and you're going to be affected.
And they were like, What? It's just a cold. And it turned out not to be.
And I think, yeah, I think many of us in the science community knew and that was a bit worrying.
But it was a very scary time to see that emerge over 20, 20, January, February, March.
And then when it first landed. Yes. Yes. And once we got to March, obviously, when the government finally decided that lockdown might be a good idea,
how did that affect what you were doing with your with your patients in Birmingham?
Terrifying. Georgina It was terrifying, Um,
because the messaging that came out was that the only way to stop the pandemic was to get out of hospitals and stay at home.
And we all accepted that this was so infectious.
So you had to get people home.
But the caveat of that, the unknown repercussions of protect the NHS were shocking and my cancer patients weren't coming forward.
They they said they didn't need treatment anymore and they, they said the only way they can keep themselves safe is to stop cancer treatment, go home.
And likewise, people who had had lumps and bumps weren't coming forward.
We were seeing drop offs in terms of people coming through the system. And I think that was a patient.
I hope I don't forget the doctor level too. We were torn.
Our doctors were debating across the NHS whether we should believe China and what they said.
The message that came out of China was that you should shut every cancer centre because
in Wuhan the hospitals were where the cancer patients got COVID and they all died.
And these were really terrible messages coming out of China.
Small studies, 20 cancer patients, all of them died because they got COVID and their own treatment.
Clear messages coming out of China shut down cancer centres across the West and I think that was being heeded by Italy.
He was hit the furthest, fastest.
And actually our doctors didn't know if what we were doing was safe because what we were trying to do is deliver cancer care.
Chemotherapy in the midst of a major global pandemic.
Sounds we know the right answer and how do it.
But at the time point it was obvious you save the population.
I mean, it wasn't obvious. People said you save the population by stopping all cancer care.
This was a few points. Get the hospitals only treat COVID and the cancer patients will pick it up in three months time when the pandemic is over.
And I, I guess the pivotal moment in my career came was when we had all the doctors in the room, doctors torn,
broken people trying to work out how would you protect the population versus how would you protect your cancer patients.
The arguments were heated. On one hand, we take we have a vow to look after our patients.
We have to keep our cancer patients life giving the quality of life.
But the other argument was you need to go down to any and mandate service now, drop everything you do, get to A&E, forget your patients.
And and so the split the straw poll in that room really heated debates saying what we should do what.
The right thing is, no one knew. Half said that will close down our clinics.
That's it for cancer care. We don't need to do this anymore.
Let's go keep our cancer patient safe at home. Let's go to any.
And the other half saying, No, I can't let my patients go. We're going to fight for them.
We're going to give them that time. We need to keep their cancer at bay because this may last much longer than three months.
And you were in that group. I see. So actually, this is my position earlier.
I said we need the data. I said we needed evidence.
I said, we need to know. And I said, I honestly don't know.
But we need to find out either way and find out what. Right. And this was the time.
These these debates went up and down and it just boards and corridors and clinics and among secretaries and offices attitude.
And no one genuine knew apart from the Chinese saying, Please shut everything down.
This is the only way forward. I say, we need the data and the only way we knew whether WhatsApp messages is crazy.
But this is how we communicate. In 2020, a London doctor pinged a doctor in Oxford who ping.
The doctor in Birmingham said, Actually my patients have survived COVID.
And that was shocking for us because we thought we if I mean the repercussions, I gave someone chemo, they got COVID, they died.
There's a clear chain there that you do not want to be part of what you want to be,
that you want to be a person who said, I told the patient to stay home. They avoided COVID.
They survived. But equally, it could be the other one, which is I sent a patient home.
They didn't get COVID, but they died for cancer. I mean, these are horrible, terrible dilemma.
Yeah, Well done. Yes. Yes. And and I think everyone was so afraid.
And every clinic we saw with people coming in, the ones who dared to come to hospital was so afraid.
And actually you just wanted to hug them. Even though we couldn't hug them, we couldn't even touch them at this stage.
We couldn't even shake their hands. We still can't in many places.
But patients with cancer was so afraid because they knew they were the higher risk group, especially the ones of chemo.
And there was no data apart from WhatsApp messages. Mm hmm. And that was that.
And the remembering is very clearly.
But did you get involved in some kind of national cancer initiative at that stage of the COVID cancer programme, which was deemed the world's first?
And so I said, we don't know. So why we take all these WhatsApp messages our face?
Why? Why we judging everything? We just WhatsApp messages.
Let's put data programming here, the assessment data programme for the whole of the country.
And let's ask the question, can we deliver cancer care safely in the pandemic?
I mean, I think am I the naivete of inexperience that states setting up massive data programs for the whole country?
But in its essence, it was really simple.
Everyone starting in London where the pandemic happened, would pull the data and they'll collect a few bits of key information.
Did the person did the did a cancer patient die or not? That was the key outcome.
Um, but the other things too were also important is what treatment did they get, What cancer type did they have?
Um, and obviously and we collect all this ethnicity and age, everything that was important.
And then we, we kicked off in March 2020, so really quick actually, and I basically had to shout as long as I can,
the UK will collect this data and we try to use the platforms that we had at that time.
But because we couldn't, the press would not cover anything. They just said, Stay at home, save the NHS, protect lives.
Everyone took that to mean stop cancer care. And that's that's the only message that came out from the mainstream press and radio.
They were just blanket these messages. So we use other channels to communicate amongst ourselves.
And surprisingly,
Twitter was a great way of galvanising support to our community because there were enough people who were saying who would be honest, we don't know.
But we took the next step. Let's go find out and put the data programme.
The data programme was amazing. And you knew were heading it.
Yeah. So I think we found that it with a professor called Gary Middleton and we asked this the idea and actually started from volume actually,
but we put Oxford, and Oxford played a key part in all parts of the planning of this and we basically said can we repurpose
the digital programmes of universities into the COVID response and how quickly can we turn them on,
turn on all the high throughput, high performance machines and pull data from every hospital?
So even if you are a little hospital and how your data would count and contributes
and the data programme pull docs and nurses contribute in data day and night.
We were watching data come in on Sunday night at 2 a.m. when the doctors are being
night shift because they found a COVID patient who have cancer and they contributed.
I was so proud actually in total 86 cancer centres to and we led the world for this.
And it was amazing because we were reports and they were all were they all treating patients or.
Some of them had some of them in a patient's home. So that's the thing.
We were we were tracking the spread of the virus as it came out of London.
So London centres were pinging the most cases. Then it hit the Midlands and they were started in pink cases in North.
In the first wave wasn't badly affected, but we could track the cases found out from the UK outwards amongst our cancer
communities and we were also knowing if they survived or not for the first time.
And what was unique about our programme was every week we sent the data straight back out to people.
So we told them this is a survival rate and actually we have really early signs that it wasn't true,
that if you had chemo and you got COVID, you automatically die. And this is actually why we were doing this.
My patient comes to me petrified in tears.
I'm taking a risk, Doctor. I'm coming to you for cancer care.
What if I got code from the hospital automatically or all around the UK or 86 continents as the doctors and nurses could go back and say,
Look, this is not a death sentence. If you avoid COVID, you'll be okay.
And many people are.
But the vulnerability we should just make clear that the reason they're vulnerable is that the chemotherapy knocks out their immune.
Exactly. And completely knocks out immune system. So they may not want to fight it.
And what we were seeing people surviving who got COVID when they have cancer, and that was really shown massively early.
That's yeah that's fantastic. And did, did that feed through into policy at all.
I did. I just can't believe what they'd the power of data because.
We knew very early on.
We knew by March when we got our paper out that we we put a big paper in The Lancet saying you can deliver cancer care safely during the pandemic.
So you said you started in March. Oh, that's that.
We we knew by May, late May that cancer care could be delivered during the pandemic and that chemotherapy was not driving deaths.
It was age and other things like ethnicity and deprivation and sex and chemotherapy wasn't that high up there, actually.
And so we could send that message out. And it was we only knew about a year later.
We look at the metrics. And from March, when we came before March, we kicked off the chemotherapy.
Prescribing levels were plummeting, literally just dropping off a cliff of people stopped coming forward,
people stopped being diagnosed and clinics that were shut down. As soon as we publish bounce straight back up again, back to 100%.
And I think we publish head to head with the Americans.
And I think you look at that data again, cancer care was interrupted for a short period of time,
but it bounced back on the on the evidence of data and confidence in our systems
and our ability to keep keep people away from curve and keep the safe in hospital.
It was it changed policy, actually. And I'm glad our little country played a little part in this because we shouldn't.
We're a very small country. We don't normally lead in terms of cancer. We do in some areas.
But this we definitely did. We told the world, keep your cancer centres going and nowadays where are we?
2023? There is nowhere around the world where cancer care is deprived because of the pandemic.
Everyone knows you've got to keep it going because cancer is a killer.
Mm hmm. So and then towards the end of 2020, you came back to Oxford.
How did that come about? So then the Oxford were really interested in terms of what I'd done,
because how do you create a system which collects all the data from the whole country and run the whole data program from scratch?
And I think I was our team were lucky because the pandemic helped us and gave us the momentum to all work together.
And I think research is always about building bridges and I try to do that all the time.
Points say, Look, we all work together on this. We need to answer the big questions that are facing us at the moment.
And my big question was, should we look, should we keep treating cancer patients?
The pandemic and we did that in the UK COVID cancer programme. And then I came to Oxford and it was really interesting.
For a year nothing was happening because all the labs were shut down.
I said, okay, I've done this, I've done my team, and now we've done in the UK.
We answer the question, Cancer care should continue. I came here, want to go pick up my mouse research again?
And there was nothing. All the types of shots at the university sent everyone home.
It was. I got sent into limbo initially in 2020 at the end of 2020.
But what I think I'm just asking, how did you come to apply for the job when things were going well at Birmingham?
You had lots of interesting things to do there. What what appealed to you about coming back to Oxford?
And Oxford was always I always see Oxford as my home.
I was a student.
Here is it's a wonderful place to live and it's got this wonderful reputation in terms of getting things going very fast and delivering it.
And I mean, I think that Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was getting done here and we were leading many efforts in terms of out who
was at risk and other big data programs and therefore was really attractive ecosystem to to contribute a bit more.
I'm not saying that Birmingham wasn't good. I love Birmingham and they gave me so many opportunities,
but it was just much closer to home for me and it worked for me personally and it was nice to see a bit more come back a bit more than I did.
My peers divided among the graduates and you came into the role that you still currently hold this joint academic, clinical, 5050 role, right?
Yeah. And so, yes. So you found that no research was going on.
So what we owe you, what you find your time. And so I think am.
Forever. For those of us which were involved in pandemic, we knew that in 2020 something bad could happen in winter.
But remember, we had that pier, pier of ignorance where we believe that we've done it over summer.
Yes. That's why I don't believe we've done it is gone.
And we have we could we could do PCR.
We could find people. We had a bit of. We could. We could.
It was the thing where they, they called it contact tracing. That was enough, wasn't it.
Contact tracing and PCR testing. We solved it.
But in my heart of hearts, again, I had that feeling again, which is, I don't know how I'm getting the feelings,
but I think there were others saying this, that there could be a surge in the winter.
And I asked around and said, Well, actually, if I can't do my go back to mask,
as you said, can I lead over to the COVID teams and helped them and just in case.
And that launched a second phase of when I got to now,
which was something that completely took me by surprise because it was a risk for me, both in my career and clinically too.
What was that?
That the lateral flow moonshots and the crazy, crazy idea and that you could remember at this time point, the PCR testing programme getting swamped,
people being sent to Wales, they got told you want to test, you got to drive for 4 hours and it was just terrible.
It's all across the press.
And there was this moonshot programme initiative which was a UK unique thing where we said we would try and work out a new diagnostic test for COVID,
which wasn't PCR based. And the programme that I got was one that Oxford agreed to lead and there were many programmes.
Every institution had one pushing one technology to try and advance as quickly as possible.
Oxford's one was called the Lateral Flow Moonshot.
We all know a lateral flow is now about that time point. I had no idea.
I got told when I first came here. Also has got a program where we believe a £1 test.
Can you give to someone? They can diagnose COVID themselves.
This will save us lots of money. This could really take the heat out of the pandemic.
And I looked into it and I thought, wow, I mean, the proposal sounds crazy,
but when I read into science, I was like, Well, there's actually something here.
And if you give something cheap to someone that they can find out themselves and you empower someone to do it.
And so I joined the lateral flow programme led by Prof.
Derek Rock, Prophet and Peter and Sir John Bell.
And it was it felt important it wasn't cancer, but I thought that it would help cancer patients eventually.
And I joined the programme and it was the most crazy rollercoaster I have ever been on because it worked.
And when I tell you a bit more about it, what are the steps required to get this into everyone's houses, which you all had in those boxes?
Well, the first step was research, and the department have needed research capable institutions.
And Oxford said, We will help you with the lateral flow programme.
And by the university, they're the ones. So Southampton, the lab and Manchester did one, too.
But we said we would do that at all flows. Why?
Because I've spoken to Derek Crook. I thought what they were doing was evaluating lateral flow tests that had been developed by private companies.
Is that. That's what it was? Yeah. They weren't trying to develop their own.
So. So this is technology? Yes. This was interesting. You know, the lateral flow.
Lots of small manufacturers all saying that their product is the best in the world.
And there were must have been 50 to 100 manufacturers all from every part of the world.
And they were all saying that a mine is the best product. And Derek was like, well, how do you know you're the best product?
And how does the government know what the best invested? Because we only want the best.
Like we want the boat. The high court says easy to use. So how do they find it?
So I got to a stage where Derek already said the system I will test in the labs initially.
And Porton Down did a fantastic job. They tested all them head to head in the most complete, fair way possible.
But then the next step becomes a big, big question is over.
A lot of testing on fake virus, which is done the test tube in perfect conditions in my shiny lab where everything is done perfectly.
But what happens when you give it to people? How does the performing stick stick in the sort that someone knows them worry about?
How does it work then? And that's why I got told to answer the question.
And that is a technology thing.
So you force it out from being in, then a microsoft in a hood, in a small number of people, a test 20 to 30 times put it in a community.
And that is the challenge is how do you do clinical trials at pace in the pandemic?
And that was a problem I had to solve initially. So what were you?
Were you actually recruiting patients and then testing them yourself? So we need to set up the fastest diagnostic study in COVID possible.
And they told us we had to do this within a month and test the technology in just one month because we saw the uptake of cases.
It was only subtle, but you could see that curve just upping up with in 2020, that was about 3000.
So in about September, October now, yes, yes. We needed to get the studies up and running.
And so it was really funny because the piece of paper, the protocol had to be had to be someone had to pull it together.
And so we reached out to a professor at Manchester Potteries Body who just happened to have a paper which says Richard Body Richard,
Richard Body and professor by the A&E consultant. He happened to have a piece of paper.
It said I would test coronavirus diagnostics. He didn't say lateral flow, but we had to amend his entire paper from scratch within a week to get that,
to keep two timescales and then get it approved. And this is where our research bodies came into the fore here,
because you have to get the paper signed off by research body, say it ethical to get a new test.
And actually part of my job was to link in with the research bodies and say,
well, would you would I know your committee is not sitting for another month.
Would you mind helping us here because we think we're on to something here.
We need to test it. And they did. I mean, I remember recording someone out of surgery and saying, look,
I know you're the chair, but please, please, please, would you mind helping here?
Because we cannot test the country at the moment.
We do not have the PCR capability, and even if we did, it will bankrupt the entire country.
With PCR, we need to have something cheaper to help people find out for themselves if it was a cold or COVID.
And to be honest, they let us go. They turned the programme on very, very quickly.
It was funded. The protocol was going. I think we were setting up the sites and the sites were interesting and charging
and because and what we needed to do was every time an outbreak happened,
they needed someone to go in there and under the guise of all of our leaderships,
take over a portacabin if you remember in 2020 there just portacabin there were literally just metal,
metal, metal crates like the shipping containers with chairs in.
And we need to put on nurses from the night shore that trained them up how to use it as a lateral flow.
And again, no one had even seen this before.
It's it's a bit like a pregnancy test, isn't it, where you've got the strip and the two lines, but the men had no idea how to use it.
The women did, but you had to also swap the people to and test them.
And so I was involved in terms of going to every outbreak region and setting up these testing centres, get them going.
That would be 24 hours then the next day.
So I had to say, do I think you're trained now, Keith, Keep an eye on these protocols and they'll ship me to next outbreak region.
We went across. We call it the moon, we call them moonshot sites.
And those sites around the country, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester,
the first ones in that area had actually, crazily enough, people probably forget that the Manchester Etihad,
because I know football games that that is do research there and that was the first site But then you went to every
outbreak region and we we set the study up 34 days to get the results of 34 days of tests over a thousand people.
And we worked out that that lateral folks were pretty good, actually surprisingly good for a test which costs a couple of pounds.
And these people who you were testing, were you doing PCR on them as well?
You're not exactly a head to head comparison as far as you can possibly do.
Yeah. And these people were people who had COVID and were.
So we called back the positives initially to work out how good it was at picking up the positive people.
So people had COVID. And I think the nurses, I think the nurses, the research nurses are amazing.
They had to call people and remember, 2020, there were very little there were no treatments, were there.
And these people really scared that home. And we were asking them to do something that was quite unheard of here.
Would you partake in research? Could we swab you again when, despite being positive, and would you contribute to the effort to get a new test?
And they did. I can't. But if they did, some people said no, I just feel too sick.
I don't leave home. I don't want to take the risk. But people gave their time and they gave their effort and came to the Etihad.
They came for that repeated test and they benefited millions of people across the world.
We got tens of million because this is how you test coronavirus lateral flow.
But they came from Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and London.
They would they made the sacrifice.
They came out, they, they, they gave the samples and we knew very quickly 34 days we knew in the UK, we knew before the rest of the world.
It was amazing. And on the strength of that, a certain number of manufacturers were chosen to supply the NHS,
the free kits that were sent out to people that you could just get on the phone.
Well then, then the UK government was a really fantastic situation.
We were the only government of which one had to had effective programmes and
we're the only UK government which knew which manufacturers were the good ones.
And the converse is also true. We also knew which ones were selling dud products and ones which were not sensitive.
Not very good. And we'll just say you're positive when you don't have COVID and say Yo, you have got.
Because when you did and there was a huge skew in performance,
the very best were grades the middle were you probably won't want to use them at the very
bottom right you just you may as well just toss the coin whether you're cold or not.
But the UK government knew and so we had this rigorous programme to test in the lab
first and tested humans second and tested we were next and we had the perfect mechanism.
This is how science should work. Only the best ideas and the best products go through.
And we did that in the UK. It's very, very satisfying actually.
That happened in many ways and only the best got through and absolutely nothing to do with cancer care.
And so once that was all done, what did you go back to doing?
And so then then I went across to the public health actually because the labs one opening up in in 2021.
So I went across the pond to help and help the scale up.
So I became a civil servant, one of the deputy leaders in the civil service in Department of Health, um,
to scale it up because at that time point they needed doctors who knew what the lateral flow was to start training the whole of the programme.
And then they might have had a crazy effort where you had to get it, turn it on an NHS, turn it on in schools and turn it on in the community.
And I was the face of the the NHS with you.
So because no one knew how to do it, they said, well we need someone who can, can you do it well?
And so they filmed me doing it as part of NHS rollout and, and I think department have again showed themselves to be a very capable organisation.
I natural flows went out very, very quickly across programme.
They made the switch from PCR to natural for very, very quickly and they did it in a safe fashion,
which was thorough and people felt comfortable with.
And I and I was really, I mean the record is like this report, we had to take people with you.
You need to tell them why you were doing this and be honest.
And we, we, we told people why they might want to do this because it was not obvious that people wanted a test.
We made it something that they wanted to do. And we talked about it being the most infectious.
We talked about the one in three people. We didn't have symptoms.
These are the truth, but it wasn't communicated. You had to find that one in three.
You had to stop the most infectious and you were protecting your family by testing.
And the public did it. It came with us and it was just a really successful government programme.
And the fact that it was free, it was just. Was astonishing, really.
And the number that you were allowed to apply for just seemed amazing.
I mean, we never needed that many, but it seemed like it must have been an incredibly costly program, but it saved so many lives.
And I think the benefit went beyond the U.K., too, because the third world,
that's what we are seeing as we pass data that we preprints in so early to third world could say,
actually, I don't need to buy all of these PCR machines because I couldn't buy them anyway.
We have no labs anyway, so why don't we go buy some of these natural food products and we know the ones which work because the UK bought them too.
And likewise any outbreak regions countries could just throw in lateral flow so they didn't need to set up labs.
It was just decentralised, easy and owned by the community.
And I remember there was a list of welfare things and I think it'll come back to you and your name, he said.
Actually we're going to protect our village and stop the outbreak there.
And they got the lateral flows out to everyone there and they tested very quickly.
Liverpool did the same to decentralise approaches to research and the pandemic response
worked really well and I think there was the reporting of the results into did you have any,
any involvement in in that side of it despite the fact that the results were reported centrally?
I did, actually. And again, I used some of the things I learned in the initial COVID cancer programme about the importance of data,
because we also, the UK, captured everyone's, whether you're positive or not and how many people are infected you test and trace.
So we could automatically say, Well, what do you know if you got a lot of virus and you got really strong lines in your lateral flow positive,
you're going on infecting ten people. And so that's where the most infectiousness thing came out of the UK that I mean,
I did we Oxford put this the Oxford podcast, but actually the Oxford academics came in very strongly here to provide that.
This is the analysis we look at. These are data points you look at, these are the graphs, profit inputs.
I draw the graph and told us where to look and we in the government programs and also when something amazing happened, the government data programme,
which the government job is data also and it became research and also became findings, actionable findings about how you can stop the pandemic.
And we had these wonderful models of like what it was doing and comparing that with data.
And so the data automatically became a circle whereby we could take the heat of
the fire by picking out the most infectious and we knew why we could do it,
which groups to do it. It was it was incredible.
And again, I just felt the data scientists had an amazing job and it's great that we're not to that we have steer that a little bit.
Right.
That's very good to hear because, I mean, the Department of Health has been knocked by the media quite a lot for various aspects of the response,
but it's very good to hear from the insight that that was working.
I think one of the things I would say reflects my time in in Department of
Health is that civil servants are not allowed to tout their own achievements.
You're not allowed to say what you've done. Well, it's only when the ministers say you are allowed to say can you say it,
and therefore that means there are so many pockets of amazing people and excellence that they then speak about what they've done.
And you may will never know.
The public will never know what a great civil service we've got and where their achievements are, because I may not hear about it, but I mean,
these sort of recordings and podcasts will say that the civil service in 2020,
when it was all going to pot, stood up and did amazing things, the vaccine testing the drugs.
And it all came. It came from the UK. It was amazing.
And we we punch above our weight. So how long did you stay in the Department of Health?
And so I stayed. That's about the summer. Summer of 21. Yeah, exactly.
And then the mission was done for me to show that that was the end of my, my second phase and the lateral flows had automatically stopped.
All the outbreaks in the over most of them. Schools could happen.
The children can come out, they could go back to normality.
Now, the universities weren't capped were locking the students up in rooms anymore because the
students could also have a test to say that was okay for me to go and play some sports.
And it felt and it was testing was around the country. So that was my job.
Then on phase two and I took a test. But that wasn't the end.
No, no. So you you had a continuing interest or concern about how vulnerable patients,
particularly those who were receiving cancer care, were treated during the pandemic?
Yes, I did. And I and I had the feeling that actually with mass vaccination, there was a viewpoint that everyone was protected.
Um, but there was stuff to be emerging data coming out showing that actually if you
look at the immune response of people who are on chemo with blood cancers,
some people there's no difference in their immune response. They just weren't, they weren't protected by vaccination.
That was probably should have been surprise and rhetoric.
But they were so strong. Vaccination will protect everyone.
This is the only way to protect yourself. But then we were seeing pockets of risk.
And some people the protection there was much, much lower than anyone else.
That really worried me. And that was coming out of data programs.
And this word came about which came out of nowhere immunocompromised.
I mean, I think we all know what it is in 2023, but no one really thought about this word apart from doctors,
maybe a few scientists, that people were immunocompromised. What does it mean?
It means your immune system is impaired. It's impaired because of the disease.
You've got like a blood cancer or the treatment that you've got. Or maybe you are born with inherited condition so your immune system doesn't work.
The hidden facts, which no one really got, was that vaccines only work because it stimulates your immune system.
If you haven't got an immune system to stimulate or is not working very well, then vaccines may not be the best protection for you.
In fact, it probably gives you something, but it's not as good as everyone else.
So there was big inequality there and that was something that people don't talk about.
But I think it was shadowed by the fact that you must never you had vaccines were shown to be good for the population,
therefore you couldn't let any anti-vax views happen there.
So there was that odd juxtaposition between make believe that vaccines, the only thing you can do versus accepting that wasn't perfect for everyone.
That was a difficult position. And so what initiatives did you become involved with?
Sure. So the initiative that I got involved with was I'm too tall.
And I think it's about making bridges. Actually, we made bridges.
And we formed this group of people who call themselves the forgotten 500 K.
Um, people were shouting the kidney transplant.
People were shouting, saying, Look, I'm at risk. Please help me. The cancer patients were saying, I think I'm at risk.
I have no response to vaccines. I at risk. Someone tell me about risk.
Please tell me I think I am. Please help me. And it happened every single group.
But what was tying them all together was they had all had immune impaired immune responses.
They were immuno compromised. They were vulnerable. And conveniently,
the government had previously lumped them all together or the immunocompromised was in some form of group called clinically extremely vulnerable CEV,
but then disband that program very, very quickly. And all they were really offering those people was to stay at home and not leave the house.
Well, I think the clinically vulnerability also allowed them to get the Super Bowl. Yes, they could.
Was it the government that the government named the most vulnerable?
Didn't know why they're vulnerable. They just said you're vulnerable. But you can join the list.
You can get your supermarket a bit better. You should stay at home.
That's what they were told, didn't seem to be the greatest level of support, but at least have the list.
But that list disappear very quickly. But they were still vulnerable and they were are forgotten.
500,000 people, you think about it, half a million people living at highest level, higher level of risk than the rest of us.
That's quite a people. But they weren't links. I, I said I talked to the patients like I always do, and they're scared.
But I said, Well, why don't you talk to each other and talk to doctors and scientists?
And then we put together this coalition of close to 500 K His only job was to protect them,
give them protection, and that was how we started protecting the vulnerable.
And what were you able to offer them?
So firstly, the most important thing we did was for them to be listened and supported, because at the end of day,
it's one person on chemotherapy in the house not able to go out scared, really risk and not knowing who you talk to.
So the first thing that they had was they could talk to each other and support each other.
And knowing that you're facing the most horrific risk or even a risk,
it may not be horrific, but other people going the same thing was really good, actually.
And they could also then came with the scientific community and be aware of what was happening.
Watching you. This is not as bad as you think it is or it's worse than you think it is.
But the truth was that and we also allowed them to link in with scientific community
clinicians who are interested in this and let them know about clinical trials in development,
um, and also tell them how they can exert change and change in our, in a democracy comes to Parliament.
And so they went out there and started speaking to the right people, their own peers, and they went stamps and they had to go via video calls.
And there was so much about how you make a voice when you call your four rooms of your youth,
how you how you can make a noise if you can't protest, if you can't leave your house.
And we actually talk many talk, many people will not see. Your MP will probably do a zoom call with you.
And Zoom is a way of communicating in the moments. Probably won't be one when people listen.
But that was really good and they made that noise and we spoke as one voice on this, on this about the fact that not everyone benefits.
And back to the data, what do we know now about what the level of risk is among those immunocompromised people?
I mean, are they showing up in hospital with COVID or have they kept themselves so shut away that they've not been exposed?
Yeah. So this is the shocking thing. And the risk at the moment is mitigated by the fact that somewhere around one in five is still doing shielding.
20%. And they, they haven't left their houses since 2020.
They don't go shopping, they don't go out, they don't go to restaurants. And where I mean, I went on holiday, I go to rest.
I this restaurant is off them much as I used to. But these people, by the cost of 500, have not done that for three years.
And again, this Christmas is a really hard one because it's their third Christmas.
They haven't spent time with family because they know that without immune system there could be an increase.
They just don't take that chance. Um, so yeah, it was really hard.
It's really tough, actually. But are they?
Yes. I mean, I'm pushing the question, what are the figures for the number that went shut,
the other four out of five who were not shutting them sit staying shut in the house?
Yeah. Have they been falling ill with COVID?
So, yes, I would say data shows that there are increased risk.
Definitely. Yes. And so if I look at on average, you're looking at a three times more risk of dying from COVID.
I varies that, but that's an average. So people always do better and do worse.
What we're seeing is that people would have transplants where their immune system completely obliterated that number can move into double figures,
right? Um, but there are a small number, but small number of people with excess risk, really high excess risk,
and that the default premise is not true, that they have no increased risk compared to the population.
That is not true. If you mean a compromise and your vaccine hasn't worked.
I mean, I have to go out there. They are at increased risk, full stop, no question about it.
And therefore people will say these people are paranoid that immunocompromised people, the forgotten 500,000 people, paranoid.
If I if you put yourself in that situation, my risk of death is higher than yours is at least three times.
Um, I think they're making reasonable decisions based on information available.
And that was what the challenge is getting information to them so they can make the right decision for them.
Because you've got to weigh up. I'm seeing along this and friend is different from seeing your nephew or niece.
They needed this information to to to take their two way every situation accordingly.
And it's been really hard for them because they're continuously calculating their odds, um,
knowing that they may not knowing that they're stuck in 2020, whereas we've all move forward with vaccination.
Yes. Yes. And I mean, I think it's probably true to say that certainly at the government level,
there's there's no firm effort being made at the moment to suppress COVID infection in the country at large because the view is,
oh, everybody's been vaccinated or had it before. And so they will only get a mild dose.
But for those 500,000 people, that means it's a dangerous environment.
It continues to be a dangerous environment. And I mean, would you argue that that should influence policy on infection control?
I don't know what time will tell. Actually, in 2022, we took a living with COVID policy, which ultimately means that it's treated like the flu,
like any other disease, um, with the proviso that everyone's protected from hospitalisation.
But you look at that, so someone should go back and look at hospitalisations.
That's a lot of people came to hospital, many people died. We've had like seven waves of COVID already, huge number of people infected.
I kind of feel that the strategy that we need to focus a bit more on is you can live with it,
but let's protect the vulnerable to protect the 500 K, they're vulnerable to flu as well because you know, they are.
They are. But and we've had a really bad flu season.
Um, but getting COVID and flu at the same time point is not a good combination.
And fortunately. Um, and would you, would I do you want me to go on the record and say, should we do more for the vulnerable?
I think we should always do the most for the vulnerable in our community the UK, England, Great Britain.
What sets the policies? We protect everyone.
We take us all with us. Can we do more? I think we can always do more and we should have done more.
And that's my opinion. Um, yeah.
And if anything, it just means that some someone who's not had a Christmas in three years might have,
might have had the third Christmas and go and see their nephew and felt empowered to do that.
And we could have made many lives a lot easier. And so, I mean, clearly you're somebody who's a voice, who's got a voice and uses it.
And the beginning of this year, sorry, you know, beginning of last year,
you joined in, decided instead to do it was end of last year, end to end of 1522.
You joined an independent sage as it is. First of all, tell us about independent say what it what is it?
What does it do for independence? Age is really interesting because they speak out.
So I think there's a there's a there's a difficulty in terms of speaking out
because you raised a head above the turret and you get shot down every so often.
And I think it's really hard to do that by yourself.
But when you got like one, the people saying, Well, this is what the data shows, this is why I believe.
And then it becomes quite nice, this whole group of people. So these are the bravest people.
These are the bravest people because from 2020 they've been telling the truth.
They've basically been saying or the inconvenient truth or the difficulties or the nuances.
Times and communities came out and they communicate out via channels that we use at the moment, like.
YouTube and Twitter, and they've got a huge following.
People want to know the truth.
And I think and and will go into nuances on the details so people can then decide that mostly doctors, epidemiologists, people.
Yeah, exactly. With appropriate it so genuine experts from around the field all coming up
and just saying what the inconvenient truths are and they liked what I mean.
I feel like they just appreciated that someone is speaking the truth about vulnerable people.
And they said, Well, would you mind sharing the data on this and talk with an independent sage?
And so I've been doing that for a couple of months now and just say, look, we need to do more to protect the vulnerable.
We need to have new drugs available and we have immunisations for them and we need to protect them.
And don't don't take your focus off the ball.
Keep focusing on what's important and let's take everyone with us and we can live with COVID but do protect everyone.
And that's what I've been saying and it's been an absolute preservation. These are people, people like Christina Pagel, Shona downie,
I think they've been talking about for so long and actually be honest where they are at the moment.
They are battle weary, but they're doing a fantastic job for the country because for the world they speak out on the truth here
and I think the world is now more difficult place than it was in 2020 because we've got so many crises,
we distract everyone's attention like a war, major war in Europe at the moment, and I'm sure which is causing energy repercussions.
And even if on a go by Exxon so expensive. But the issue at the moment is should we be protecting the vulnerable?
Can we live with COVID and do we have equity of protection?
And it's a continues to speak on this point. It's a privilege.
And do you think I mean, given that they are outside,
they were set up because they felt that the official sage wasn't speaking the truth sufficiently.
Can you say have you seen any evidence that the communications of independent Sage have influenced government policy at all,
or is it more a question of influencing individual behaviour? Good question.
I would say, and I think Sage is interesting because it's not set for months at the moment.
They are called when the government needs them and I think it's been three six months since they last set then gave recommendations.
So I guess Sage is important and I, and I don't, I,
I'm not against the United States most importantly God, but they need to be called and listened to.
And I think eventually they will be called because we're in the midst of the most terrible situation with the pandemic at the moment.
So many cases in the Christmas surge, what do you do next? But what is independent sage does?
Well, it just as a truth for anyone who wants to listen.
They the public clearly want to listen to it, which is fantastic that scientists want to listen to it, which is fantastic.
And the politicians are always firefighting. But I think enough of them will listen to it, hopefully to to make their own views,
because at the end of the day, the truth is not what you're told to believe.
The truth is what the data shows and what the research shows. And I think that's what so makes me so proud about independence.
They so they just continue to just hammer away the truth, even though it's inconvenient, even though it's hard.
But the science shows what the science shows, and that's what the sage is both do.
As soon as they keep looking at the data and saying what they said is that's important.
And do I mean, do you have a personal voice? Do you have a Twitter account? I just don't think I did.
I look, I do. I do. I do. I do have that before COVID began.
When how long have you been on Twitter? So I've been on Twitter for a long time, but I think there needs to be good communications.
And I started my Twitter,
but I've really ramped up recently because the public need to be able to hear from the scientist directly because you need to know who to trust.
Let me be honest with you, I,
I even I struggle to know who to trust on Twitter at the moment because basically having a blue tick is just something you pay for.
But I think actually people need to be able to start communicating, take people on the journey,
because if you're not working out where the nuance is, where the difficulties are,
then you can't make the right decisions for yourself or your family because at the end of day,
you're just trying to live a normal life in a very difficult situation.
The pandemic has not gone away yet. So I have to ask communicating.
I'm not someone who do closed doors control by committees.
That's not how I work. I think the most important thing is to talk to the people who you want to look after.
I'll talk to my cancer patients happily on Twitter and try and get them nuances within the city.
140 word limits. But I think more people should do the same,
communicate their science and communicate benefits and risks and uncertainty so people can make
decisions and don't just force them to do things because you said so in a closed door somewhere.
I think that's to the strength of Twitter. And do you I think you mentioned to me earlier that you had had some training in communication.
Yes, absolutely. So. And communications had really interest.
Same thing because I communicate, because I've been trained as a doctor, I'll communicate many different levels of scientific lay academic.
But I have had other forms of communications which are a kind of and I love them from when I have media trained department health.
That's completely different. And you're going to see different people communicate different ways.
But I do the more doctor approach here. It's a two way conversation.
You tell me what your priorities are. I'll tell you what you need to know. Yes.
But you I mean, it's clearly a that comes across in the way you speak,
that you you know how to tailor what you're saying to the person you're speaking to,
which actually is a skill that not all scientists have by any means.
I did not know that. I did not know that.
I know there were lots of scientists who just took the way they do all the time, as if they're talking to colleagues.
And they're really surprised if you tell them that the general public wouldn't understand what they just said.
Oh, interesting. I mean, this this pandemic has brought scientists close with the public.
Yes. Actually, you need someone to bridge the gap because I can talk about SARS-CoV-2 and Anti and epitopes and G whatever mutation, XB 1.55.
But actually, why can't I translate that?
Have I gone so far down means that I'm not going to speak in the same language.
Maybe that's what's good about Oxford. We have our clinical academics who are both doctors where Dr. Harte and Clinical have,
but also people and will go out there and tell you what the science is and tell you the latest information in a way that everyone understands.
I didn't realise that that's how people see me.
Interesting. So what are your main priorities at the moment?
Are you back in the lab? Have you got research going again? Yeah.
And so?
So my main priorities at the moment are to protect the vulnerable, keep the focus on them, because I still don't think this pandemic is finished.
Yes, I guess we'll know this in a few years time.
Point. How many more waves, how many of those effects? And this is something that still come around the horizon.
I hope it isn't. I hope it pans out. But you have to maintain both positions.
Otherwise you make the wrong decisions here. Blinkered belief the pandemic is over is not going to get us anywhere.
Some people believe that have this blinkered view of the moment. I think that we should still protect the vulnerable.
The second thing that I'm working on is interesting, because I think that's a legacy in this pandemic.
No one's talked about the positives come out of it,
and I don't worry about talking positive because it's been horrific for me and I've had to look after so many families in difficult situations,
has been rife of all of us, and people have lost our loved ones. But what did we learn?
Did we have lessons learnt? Where our success and how we can capitalise it.
I see something exciting come around. The corner is the cancer vaccine.
This is something that's really exciting. The COVID vaccine went from an idea in people's head in ten months to completed studies to the population.
That's a year and a half, and it changed everyone's lives.
There are huge benefits in that. Technology's easy to make. The next question is, well, you do that for the infrastructure.
All these know how human knowledge has gained so much.
What do you want to do now? You're letting go of your next target.
Other major issues that we can help with. I think cancer is a major issue.
It affects 400,000 people in the UK and one in two of us will get it if we can test the hypothesis.
We do the same studies that I did before beforehand, the country did beforehand that you could stop cancer coming back.
You could provide long term protection. I think we should give it a go.
I think there is. And I think ultimately I think we've done so much.
But one of the most amazing things is the advancement in scientific endeavour, in vaccine development,
in research and clinical trials that then enables us to have developed the cancer vaccine in record time.
Don't know this yet. Let's see where this is going to go. And is it I mean,
there have been a big red read of a case recently of somebody who was given a
very personalised treatment based on antigens on their own specific tumours.
Do you think such a cancer vaccine would need to be that individually targeted, or do you think,
given the current state of knowledge there might be a target discovered that would work for a wide range of cancers?
Good question. The personalised versus the off the shelf vaccine.
At the moment all our COVID vaccines are off the shelf, but personalised ones, there's many, many different technology providers.
We now can personalise the vaccine for you against your cancer.
And the most amazing thing is that they can, if you go to the factory, they'll make it for you.
The critical. A missing piece is proving it works. And how quickly can you do it?
We proved the covaxin in ten months. I don't know how quickly to prove the cancer vaccine,
but I would encourage them to go very quickly because now we've got manufacturing source and we've got the technology there.
We can do the delivery I. We just need to supercharge the model bit like we did the pandemic response.
And I think the personalised ones are really interesting.
It, it is tailored to the genetic mutations of that cancer where any abnormalities, where the cancer is,
you're priming the immune system, you give it a blueprint of what a cancer looks like.
So your immune system, which didn't really know what cancer was and therefore let it spread everywhere,
can automatically say, Well, I see a cancer there. That's eats it up now.
That solve it. This could be long term protection of a cancer.
We don't know until we've tried it. And it's whether the world is brave enough to try it.
And are you personally engaged in looking for those kind of targets in your lab?
So we're really future thinking in Oxford. And I think all four of us have understood that this is where the potential can be as a country, actually.
The UK announced quite an ambitious plan to see 10,000 cancer patients to be tested with these cancer vaccines.
And I think they said that we're going to start in September.
And actually I did want to make my part in any bigger than anyone else's.
But actually this is a collective effort. Everything we've done together, the countries collective effort from the very end,
the nurses and doctors, the people on the ground, the patients, this cannot be done.
It's concerted effort, just like all the other things like the COBRA cancer program, the lateral flow,
the forgotten 500 is when, when, when we all get behind something, push it together just a short period of time.
That's what we'll get it over the line. So, yeah, I'll play my part, I think by actually, or everyone's going to play their part in this.
And it's an exciting time because this is the chance where we can learn from the pandemic and solve a second disease and make huge strides there.
That's great. So I'm just going to ask one or two more questions about are you okay for time?
Yeah. About how the pandemic affected you personally.
So, I mean, first of all, how threatened did you feel by the virus itself, by the possibility of actually catching it?
I felt really vulnerable and threatened. Um, I remember staying up late at night and asked that the naughty question.
The naughty question that every doctor thought about in 2020.
If the virus hit UK shores. And if I went into hospital and I got put out and know there's a real chance me dying, would I still keep coming to work?
I will. Doctors have that question in the head. Should I just stay home like the population is okay?
If you're at home, you're safe. You go to the hospital and treat every person. You're not safe.
You are the most highest level of risk way to do that.
And I debate that all weekend. And you know what? Me, along with every other doctor NHS, said, Actually, no, we're going to work.
I mean, I just think that was the critical point when you knew that you shouldn't go into the where there was a major outbreaks COVID everywhere.
You're going to try your best to help people who are sick with COVID. We'll give them what little treatments we got, but we're still come to work.
And no nurse gave up, no doctor gave up. And yeah, it's actually quite amazing to think about that decision again because it was such a hard one.
Yes, everyone went through it. I think other people, some people with Matthew said, we'll go through no matter what will happen.
Other people debated it for longer than I did, but we all went in.
Incredible. And did you end up working in A&E? We didn't. I didn't kind of feel like I said, yeah, that's how I am.
I got redeployed. We moved on to these horrific shifts where doctors were doing 13 hour shifts continuously, 13 hour, 13 hour sets now, 13 hour.
And we pushed and the nurses to us.
Then I think there were periods where we were crying for our patients because the death was so quick, like we never knew a virus like this.
You patient could go from the first day chatting, eating, and then I'm 40 dead in the middle of night.
And we were not used to this. Not I mean, I'm not used to this cancer that takes people in months, two years or some people and days.
But this was I was terrifying. So that was really tough.
Yeah, it affected me. Daphne as a doctor and I moved across.
I fished people out and I had to do this horrific maths, which we didn't.
We know how to use it. That starts the ones which are battery powered and blow up a little balloon over your head.
And they kept changing to depending on what people thought was the safer so and the multiple steps to put on a gown so no
skin was showing Oh goodness that was like we all had to be retrained and then you had to do that several times a day.
Yeah, exactly. To try and keep us safe and.
Yeah, because none of us were vaccinated at that time. Point I'm an Asian male to risk factors automatically with asthma.
Three risk factors. Goodness. I but again, the doctors all had to fill these risk assessment charts.
But what was incredible, even doctors take five things they said, Actually,
I know that I'm obese, Asian or male co-morbidities, but I still want to help my patients.
And they did it. So many people did do that. And they said, I'll take the risk to help the patients.
And yeah, affected us all. But and it did you do you ever get it in the end.
Yeah it did And it was horrible for you'd been vaccinated for a while.
This is a surprising thing. I don't know how this happened, but like I was in a and they, I did all the moonshot sites.
I went for every outbreak with all the masses. So getting all the people involved.
And by sheer chance, I managed to stay away from it. Until when was it Last year?
2022, when I was vaccinated and got it. I think it's because after vaccination we went.
We went to live with COVID and it just went rampant. That's when I got it as well.
Okay. June last year, Yes, it was horrible disease. I felt so bad, like worse than flu.
They said it was I live halfway through. I said that I don't know if I need to go to hospital or not because I felt so terrible.
How was it for you? What I barely noticed, really.
And really the only thing that seemed odd was a bit of low back pain. Wow.
And I looked it up and found something that said that in South Africa they'd found that was a symptom of emigrant.
And I have a tiny tickle in my throat, but I'm slightly asthmatic too, so that's fairly normal.
I wasn't ill at all. I wasn't tired, nothing. But I was showing positive on lateral flow for ten days.
I see. And I thought my dad actually. And then maybe it's all genetics.
And I took to bed. I could couldn't walk up the stairs.
I struggled to ease, couldn't breathe. It was the worst.
And your dad? Your dad had the same. Yeah.
So I think we've probably all got horrible stories, but my dad had it in the pre-vaccination and because he he's actually also a doctor.
He's an IBM professor at UCL, but he was also one of these people that ticked all the boxes, the major risk for COVID.
And he still went in. But unfortunately on the on the roll of the dice, he got it.
He got really unwell.
Actually, he could he was far worse and I would be because I guess he's older and I was actually really worried if he was going to survive or not.
But he hospitalised. We, he sat to the border but at that time point that you were the basket in hospital so high, um, he had clots in his lungs too.
And, and I went down to, I had to go take off a few days to make sure that he would survive, that he did, thank God.
But I mean, I think there were. One who knew someone about Cove in 2020 knew someone who they weren't sure was going to survive it or not.
And you just hope and pray at that time with no drugs, no treatments.
We just had oxygen and fluids. And if you get the hospital, if you do get a hospital, you just have prayers and love.
And then he got through it, which is amazing. But it really affected me then.
And this is why I feel so passionate about protecting vulnerable because.
The pandemic is a killer. It can be a killer still.
If you've been vaccinated and you respond to, fine, but it can be killer.
And some people are stuck in that 2020 episode, like my dad.
And it's still happening up and down the country now.
And then the stories in 2020, if people would just go out for dinner and then having no one coming home,
they all went to hospital after that because they all die from COVID. That is how some people still live now.
But it has affected me and it has affected many family members and me being Asian, some people have died.
So we all bear the scars of this pandemic and do so.
Yeah, even when you've clearly been through from some through some horrendous times,
did the fact that you were working on something important helped to support your wellbeing, do you think?
Yes, I think it did. I think it did.
It gave me gave me a mission and it's completely derailed my career where thoughts are going to be but gave me a mission of help.
And actually there are so many people who stood up and said,
I want to help the pandemic of Iraqi workers that didn't die, but for me personally gave me a mission and ambition.
I think other people do different things in lockdown, like paint.
The houses did all the work, but I'm glad that I was deemed good enough to help with the pandemic response.
And I've worked very hard to like many people and and yeah, it gave me mission and it's something that still drives me to this day.
I'm going for the greater good here. And yeah, so this is my final question.
So has the public mostly answered it, but they give you a chance to say some more if you want to.
Has the experience of living through that period changed your attitude or your approach to your work,
and what would you like to see change in the future? Yeah, it has changed everything, I think.
Well, I'm sat here in 2023. You can't most people can't see that tectonic shifts have happened.
But I can because I've lived through and I've been lucky to see all of that.
Um, I think maybe three main areas that I see has shifted.
Scientific progress has accelerated.
I use the word hyper accelerated because things happen in months to years, which by right should have taken 1020 years in 2019.
Like I don't I see this in Oxford is happening across all of our research programs like the vaccine panoramic recovery.
All of our programs are supercharged and it's all happening in the UK.
I don't know why the UK has been this epicentre of innovation for the pandemic, but we are the epicentre of innovation for the pandemic.
We have punched above our weight so we mustn't lose that.
The second thing is beyond the science is that the public are backing us as a science superpower.
All of a in the public can be interested about many different things,
but there are new breed of people coming up now which will communicate the public and say, Look what you want to achieve.
Let's help you get there. Do you want to solve cancer? Well, if you back us, of course we'll try our hardest to.
The scientists will take the public with the system as opposed to doing our bit where we know we're working on its own issues
and don't tell anyone about it and push down on this single area for 30 years and maybe something will come out of it.
We are now in line with what the public needs. So I think the science is better, the public is better.
And also I think it is that the nature of who we are as a country going forward.
Um, we were just a little country on the edge of Europe beforehand,
but actually we realised that we do have the skills, we can work together and we can lead ideas going forward.
And the ideas I would say would be that we can treat cancer patients, the pandemic we can use, we can get a new test which can diagnose COVID,
we can have the October AstraZeneca vaccine, we will benefit the Third World and we will lead in all things which are good.
And that confidence, which is emerging slowly from our country,
will probably still need to be nurtured by government politicians in order to keep our eye on the ball.
But it puts a future where we're not just following, but it can influence and help many, many more people and a vaccine to this.
I hope we do play our part with a counter vaccine too, and the 10,000 people will start to benefit the world too.
Um, but I think it's those three things here and the flourishing of science to taking the public with us and potentially where
our country starts to evolve and innovate and really start to have a bit more of a role in this life sciences space.
Because at the end of day that is where we are doing really well and hopefully will continue to do well.