Dr Johnny Tam
MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow
- Institute for Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research
- Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic
Contact details
- Email: jtam@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic
Chancellor's Building
49 Little France Crescent - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH16 4SB
Background
- MBBS, University College London (2019)
- Intercalated MA, University of Cambridge (2016) with focus in Neuroscience
- Foundation Programme, Southeast of Scotland (2021)
- Clinical Fellow in neurodegenerative disease at the National CJD Research and Surveillance Unit (2021-2022)
- Rowling and Dr Hugh S.P. Binnie PhD Scholar (Clinical Brain Sciences), University of Edinburgh (2022-)
- Honorary Clinical Fellow, ACORD Fellows Academy, MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL (2022-)
- MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow (2024-)
Johnny is an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow and PhD student at the Institute of Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research and the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic. His thesis "deep learning digital speech biomarkers in motor neuron disease", supervised by Prof Suvankar Pal, Dr Oliver Watts and Prof Siddharthan Chandran, investigates the use of artificial intelligence and speech technologies to enhance clinical care and research in motor neuron disease and other neurodegenerative disorders such as dementia, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis. He is a co-investigator in digital health observational studies (Digital App for Speech and Health Monitoring Study, NeuroCARE registry) and two multi-arm multi-stage clinical trials in Neurology: MND-SMART and OCTOPUS.. He has experience in developing and validating machine learning and artificial neural networks for clinical use, as well as software and database development for web-enabled clinical research platforms and apps.
Research summary
My main research focus is in health data science and digital technology in neurodegenerative disorders. These conditions are progressive and incurable, and represent a massive and increasing global health burden. Our aim is to develop digital tools that would benefit both patient and clinician by facilitating scalable data collection and remote assessment of disease. We hope these tools will improve outcome measures for clinical research, and act as an adjunct to routine clinical practice. I also have clinical and research experience in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and related prion disorders.