Dr Benjamin Parcell

Clinical Senior Lecturer Hon Consultant

Population Health and Genomics, School of Medicine

Benjamin Parcell
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Email

[email protected]

Biography

Benjamin qualified with an MBChB from the University of Dundee in 2007. He first pursued his interest in pathogen genomics during Medical Microbiology specialty training when he spent three months as a Visiting Scholar at the University of St Andrews. Benjamin’s first consultant post was in NHS Grampian as a Medical Microbiologist and Infection Prevention and Control Doctor. He returned to NHS Tayside to commence an NRS Early Career Research Fellowship in conjunction with the University of Dundee in 2018. He later built on his research interest by successfully completing his MD in ‘Whole Genome Sequencing Service-Investigating Healthcare Associated Infections’  in 2021.

Research

Benjamin was awarded the Healthcare Infection Society (HIS) Early Career Award 2020 for his research on pathogen and antimicrobial resistance (AMR).  He believes that innovative approaches and harnessing emerging technologies can revolutionise the way in which pathogen transmission is prevented in hospitals and the community. Benjamin enjoys conducting clinically relevant research which assists in answering key clinical questions that can inform practice. HIs research can be divided into two areas:

  • Pathogen/AMR detection - using genomics and rapid molecular diagnostics for identification, optimising treatment and unravelling of transmission informing infection prevention and control (IPC) strategies. 
  • Innovative data analysis to understand the development of resistance and epidemiology of healthcare associated infections (HAIs).

Benjamin led a competitive application to become a custodian and bring the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) 20 years AMR Surveillance Collection to the University of Dundee. This includes 107,374 UK bacterial isolates from blood stream and respiratory tract infections. This unique collection holds a wealth of resistance surveillance data and is a valuable resource for both University of Dundee researchers and others, both nationally and globally.