Overview

Dr Bea Knight is a Senior Research Nurse/Midwife with The National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Exeter Clinical Research Facility (EXETER CRF). She has nearly 40 years clinical experience in the NHS as both Nurse and Midwife, during which time she also spent a year working as a Registered Nurse in Toronto, Canada. Bea has also been involved in developing and undertaking a Traditional Birth Attendant (TBA) training Programme in the Gambia, to help improve the lives of local Mothers and their families.

Bea has over 25 years’ experience in health service research and is passionate about ensuring NHS research is a key part of improving the care that is given to patients and their families. Bea is committed to ensuring that patients and the public are involved in all stages, to make sure that the voices of the NHS users are a key part or the research process

Qualifications

PhD – Medical Sciences

MSc – Healthcare (Child health and Family Law)

RN  

RM

RGN

Publications:

Over 90 first and co-author publications to date

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Research

Research interests

Broad research specialisms

• Early phase research studies
• Pilot/feasibility Studies
• Translational/mechanistic studies
• Tissue Bank Studies
• Biomarker development studies

Research projects

Current Projects:

Exeter 10,000 (EXTEND)/Peninsula Research Bank (PRB)

NIHR BioResource for Translational Research in Common and Rare Diseases  (NIHR BioResource)

Royal Devon and Exeter Tissue Bank (RDETB) studies covering a variety of specialties including:

• Dermatology
• Antenatal
• Orthopaedics
• Diabetes

• Biomarker/Screening Development studies including:

• Newborn Screening (NEWBIE)
• Respiratory Medicine (PETFIB)

• Mechanistic studies - ENDPLATE 

• Grants/Funding:
   

• 2000 - NHS Research and Development Department PhD Studentship – Paternal determinates of fetal and early childhood growth
• 2008 -  Burdett Trust Nursing Award –Maternal Obesity project

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External Engagement and Impact

Awards

• 2005 Member of team winning the Queens Anniversary Award
• 2005 Member of team winning academic team of the year
• 2014 Best Poster – Maternal Medicine, Perinatal Medicine Conference
• 2015- Winner of the British Thyroid Foundation Evelyn Ashley Smith Nurse Award

• 2017 –Winner of the Clinical Endocrinology Trust Prize -Society for Endocrinology Annual Conference

• 2018 – Oral Presentation Bursary Award – Trinity College Dublin

Committee/panel activities

• Joint PPI lead for NIHR Exeter Clinical Research Facility
• Co-Chair of the Peninsula Research Bank (PRB) Steering Committee
• Clinical/Academic member of the Exeter CRF Diabetes PPI group
• Member of Translational Research Exchange @ Exeter (TREE) Steering Committee.
• Member of NIHR national PPI Lead Group

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