A doctor from Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge was yesterday (Monday, 9 March) honoured during a high-profile International Women’s Day event for her life-saving work during the Covid-19 lockdown.
Consultant in infectious diseases, Dr Effrossyni Gkrania-Klotsas, is one of 20 doctors, nurses and researchers singled out in the Greek Top Women Awards 2021 for their “tireless fight” against the pandemic.
She is part of a team from CUH and the University of Cambridge developing artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to help doctors decide what action to take on the front-line, before patients reach a critical stage.
Effrossyni is the Clinical Research Network lead for infectious diseases for the East of England, local co-principal investigator for the over-arching Covid -19 RECOVERY trial and ISARIC study, and a collaborator in two more Covid-19 epidemiology studies. She is also a member of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Biostatistics Unit and the MRC Epidemiology Unit.
She believes AI will result in improved patient triage and opportunities for research into personalised medicine, with the right treatment, given at the right time to more patients.
The judges, who left the final round of voting to the public, described the winners as “heroines”, who struggle every day, with great self-denial, to help bring the world back to some semblance of normality.
The awards are run by the Greek International Women Awards (GIWA) committee with the websites www.eirinika.gr (opens in a new tab), www.madeingreece.news (opens in a new tab) and the Numismatic Museum of Greece. The websites were created by Irene Nikolopoulou – a stalwart journalist and presenter on Greek television.
Effrossyni, the daughter of citrus farmers in the northern Peloponnesian town of Argos, said she was delighted with the honour, but stressed that she was part of a wider team which has made the AI research a success. She added:
The awards really are a very big thing in Greece and further demonstrate the contribution women are making in all sorts of fields. I feel honoured to be included among them.
Dr Effrossyni Gkrania-Klotsas
In addition to her work at CUH and MRC, Effrossyni is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP), a fellow of St Edmund's college and an associate lecturer of the University of Cambridge. She has authored and co-authored numerous papers in international peer-reviewed journals and has lectured in international forums and symposia and universities in America, Europe and Asia.