A sombre note: Professor Rick Jones
The recent of passing of Professor Rick Jones (see Rick Jones obituary) caused me to reflect on the past.
I was very fortunate to earn a work placement with Dr Rick Jones at The University of Leeds in the summer of 1990. Rick was enthusiastic about the role of IT in medicine, and after securing funding for a full-time position he employed me as a computer programmer. Early projects included software for automating the monitoring of various blood marker tests and software to diagnose Down’s syndrome. At the time many hospitals had in-house solutions for diagnosing Down’s syndrome, and although the project took many years and the help of many other people to complete, it eventually gained widespread adoption.
Around 1992, Rick came up with the idea of a statistics package that integrated into Microsoft Excel. Armed with a ring bound folder containing the Excel SDK and a pile of medical statistics books, I set about the task of writing the software in C++. It wasn’t long before the first version of Astute was ready and commercially released.
Never short of ideas for new projects, Rick started leaving journal articles in my in-tray covering subjects such as Deming and Passing-Bablok regression, Galen-Gambino sensitivity/specificity and ROC analysis. Rick had widespread experience and knowledge of the statistics needed in the clinical laboratory, and was keen to make the subject less daunting and more accessible to clinicians. The plan was to extend Astute to include these new statistical techniques. It would be an entirely new type of statistics package, so new in fact that when we released the product we didn’t have a good name for it and it was simply called “Astute - Module 1”.
Rick later co-authored the book Clinical Investigation and Statistics in Laboratory Medicine and it helped many clinicians better understand and appreciate the use of statistics in the laboratory.
Eventually, I moved on from Leeds University to co-found Analyse-it, and develop the successor to Astute. The ‘Module 1’ product transformed into the Clinical Laboratory Module and later into the Method Validation Edition. From its conception in Astute, to its implementation to Analyse-it, the product has transformed method validation in clinical laboratories and in-vitro diagnostic companies around the world.
Without Rick, Analyse-it would not exist today. Rick was the original catalyst and visionary for the product. Although I am writing this with great sadness, reflecting on the past, Rick’s enthusiasm for life leaves me positive and inspired. His inspiration will live on through Analyse-it.
Related news
-
Sysmex Continues to Evolve Its Hematology Product Portfolio
Since its founding in 1968, Sysmex has developed its business by focusing on the hematology field (blood cell count tests), which analyzes the number, type, and size of red and white blood cells as well as platelets. Sysmex has adopted a modular concept since the launch of the XN-Series Automated Hematology Analyzer (“XN-Series”) in 2011, combining modules for blood count, smear preparation, automated digital cell morphology analysis and sample sorting to offer a broad range of system options tailored...
-
INOVIO Announces Positive Results from REVEAL 1, a Phase 3 Pivotal Trial Evaluating VGX-3100, its DNA-based HPV Immunotherapy for the Treatment of High-grade Precancerous Cervical Dysplasia Caused by HPV-16 and/or HPV-18
INOVIO, (NASDAQ:INO), a biotechnology company focused on bringing to market precisely designed DNA medicines to treat and protect people from infectious diseases, cancer and HPV-associated diseases, today announced it met primary and secondary endpoints among all evaluable subjects for the REVEAL 1 trial. This trial is one of two ongoing pivotal, randomized, double-blind, multi-center, placebo-controlled, Phase 3 trials (REVEAL 1 and REVEAL 2) evaluating the safety, tolerability and efficacy of VGX-3100 to treat...
-
Inflammatix Announces $7.4 Million in Additional BARDA Funding to Advance ViraBac EZ Acute Infection Test
Inflammatix a pioneering molecular diagnostics company, announced today a contract extension of $7.4 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, to further develop its point-of-care test and system to diagnose infection by reading the immune system. The contract is part of a BARDA contract worth up to $72 million, if all options are exercised. The...
-
Thermo Fisher Scientific Introduces Oncomine Clinical Research Grant Program to Support Oncology and Reproductive Health Studies
Thermo Fisher Scientific today introduced the Oncomine Clinical Research Grant Program to support clinical research projects in oncology and reproductive health. The program aims to provide support for high-quality molecular profiling studies focused on the generation of data that may improve clinical outcomes for patients in the future. As part of an initial pilot focused on oncology, the company is calling for proposals dedicated to gene fusions in solid tumors and molecular testing in blood cancers. Grant...
-
Thermo Fisher Scientific Announces Collaborations to Meet Unmet Clinical Needs in Biomarker Discovery and Characterization
Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science, today announced new collaborations of the Thermo Fisher Precision Medicine Science Center (PMSC) with AstraZeneca and the University of Nebraska Medical Center as part of its ongoing development of innovative solutions for unmet needs in clinical biomarker discovery. The new alliances strengthen the PMSC`s mission of creating standardized workflows with pharma and academic partners to streamline the transition from biomarker research to clinical...
Customer comments
No comments were found for A sombre note: Professor Rick Jones. Be the first to comment!