05 Mar 18. Staff profile - Dr G Thompson

Gerry Thompson provides information for our staff profile section - on life as a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Radiology.

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Dr Gerry Thompson
Research Focus

Dr Gerry Thompson's main research focus is quantitative, translational neuroimaging, particularly for identifying imaging biomarkers for earlier disease detection, and assessment of treatment response. This currently involves PET-MR and MRI in brain tumours & dementia.

Educational background

Gerry’s first degree was a BSc in Biochemistry at the University of Glasgow, followed by a medical degree (MBChB). He trained initially in surgery in the West of Scotland becoming a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS). This was followed by Radiology training through an NIHR Walport Academic Clinical Fellowship at the University of Manchester & North Western School of Radiology.

Gerry was awarded the Cancer Research UK Gordon Hamilton-Fairley Clinical Research Training Fellowship for his PhD in Advanced Imaging Biomarkers of Glioma at the University of Manchester under Prof Alan Jackson & Prof Geoff Parker, finishing in 2013. After becoming a Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists (FRCR), he gained training in clinical neuroradiology, outside of academia in Manchester, Oxford,  and London.

Working within the NHS

In 2015,  he accepted a post as an NHS Consultant Neuroradiologist in the Greater Manchester Neurosciences Centre. He has recently completed training in radionuclide imaging for delivering clinical FDG PET in dementia.

As an Honorary Consultant Neuroradiologist for NHS Lothian, Gerry is particularly involved in the neuro-oncology & dementia services. A core member and lead Radiologist for the NCRI Glioma Clinical Studies Group advising on multicentre brain tumour clinical trials in the UK, he is the Principal Investigator in Edinburgh for a large multicentre study of Diffusion Imaging in Glioma (DIG).

Future collaborations

Gerry is leading imaging development for two large, multicentre glioma trial initiatives in the UK , involving image-guided tissue sampling & characterisation, and intraoperative imaging for improving neurosurgical resection.

He is also developing translational brain tumour imaging biomarkers using manganese-enhanced MRI (MEMRI). He has also recently established collaborations working with the Roslin Institute,  delivering longitudinal MRI & PET in translational models of neurological disease.