Paul Kingston

Overview

Well hello! It's nice to know that there's anyone out there who's interested in my contribution to the University, and to life in general.

Where to start? OK. I hold the position of Senior Lecturer in Cardiology within the Cardiovascular Research Group. My role is principally as a researcher: I head a small group investigating the therapeutic application of cardiovascular gene transfer. But more of that elsewhere... I also work as an honorary Consultant in the Cardiology department of Salford Royal Hospital, where I make my small contribution to the cardiovascular well-being of my fellow man in Greater Manchester.

Biography

Born and raised in the north-east of England, my higher education began at Manchester Medical School in the early 1980s. I was awarded the John Russell Medical Entrance Scholarship in 1982 and obtained a 2:1 in Medical Biochemistry in a year of intercalated study in 1985 before taking a year out of education to recover from injuries incurred in an RTA (I wasn't driving and I wasn't drunk at the time - it hurt!). Returning to Medical School, I was awarded the degrees of MB;ChB with Honours in 1989 and set off on what I anticipated was to be a career of service commitment to the NHS. I obtained membership of the Royal College of Physicians in 1992 and after several years as a middle-grade trainee in cardiology, decided to take a year or two to indulge in a short period of research. I was awarded a Bristol-Myers Squibb Cardiovascular Research Fellowship in 1998, which allowed me to make the transition from part-time to full-time research student and led ultimately to the award of my PhD at the University of Manchester in 2002. In 2001 I won the MMS Pfizer prize for medical research and came runner-up in the BCS Young research Worker's prize and the Menarini Academy Cardiovascular Research awards (I think I should have won both of these too, but my stance may be less than entirely objective).

In 2004 I was awarded a British Heart Foundation Intermediate Research Fellowship and in June 2006 won one of the first tranche of HEFCE "New Blood" Clinical Senior Lecturerships, which I took up in June 2007. Right now I'm leading a small group of enthusiastic and dedicated researchers through our adventures in vascular gene transfer. It isn't an easy road, but someone's got to get out in front and blaze a trail!