Dr David Eyre has won the Healthcare Infection Society (HIS) Early Career Award 2021 in recognition of his outstanding innovative contributions to the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections as an early career clinician.
Dr Elisabeth Ridgway, HIS Chair of Trustees said ‘HIS Council were particularly impressed by how Dr Eyre has used traditional and molecular diagnostics, whole genome sequencing and wider healthcare analytics to investigate microbial transmission, and applied large data driven studies to reduce healthcare-acquired infection and directly influence staff and patient care.
‘HIS Council also recognised Dr Eyre’s significant role in supporting the infection prevention and control strategy of his Trust during the COVID-19 outbreak. They acknowledged that his role in the development of a web-based application to collect data and support Trust staff had led to the first publication internationally to show that prior COVID-19 infection protects against subsequent symptomatic COVID-19 infection.’
Dr Eyre is Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Associate Professor at the Nuffield Department of Population Health, a Robertson Foundation Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Big Data Institute, and a NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre Senior Fellow.
On winning the award, Dr Eyre said ‘I am delighted and very honoured to accept the Healthcare Infection Society’s Early Career Award 2021. I have had an exciting and rewarding decade combining my clinical training with using state of the art technology to try to better understand how and why infection spreads and what we can do to stop it, to protect patients and healthcare workers.
‘I am incredibly grateful to many great mentors and friends who have supported me, in particular Professors Sarah Walker, Mark Wilcox, Tim Peto and Derrick Crook, as well as many fantastic clinical colleagues at Oxford University Hospitals. I would also like to thank all the patients and healthcare workers who have contributed to research I have been involved in. Finally, a very big thank you to my wife Katie and three children, William, Alex and Rosie, for lots of love and fun outside of work that has made much of what I have achieved possible.’
The HIS is a charitable organisation with over 1,250 members who are experts in the prevention and control of healthcare-associated infections. The award will be presented to Dr Eyre during a HIS event later in the year.