Professor Joy Ardill
Consultant Clinical Scientist at the
Royal Victoria Hospital
Belfast, Ireland
Professor Joy Ardill is currently Consultant Clinical Scientist at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast Trust Belfast and Honorary Professor of Medicine at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland.
Joy Ardill studied Biochemistry at Queen’s University, graduating with honours in 1970. She graduated PhD in Medicine in 1973 having completed a thesis on the measurement of gastrin in health and disease. She is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and a BD in Divinity and Philosophy.
Since 1970 she has been heavily committed to research, in the early years predominantly in the study of gastrin and the aetiology of peptic ulcer disease. Since 1990 she has become increasingly involved in studying the chemistry of neuroendocrine tumours. Belfast is the regional referral centre for neuroendocrine tumours and the Regional Regulatory Peptide Laboratory, of which Professor Ardill is head, is one only two such referral laboratories in the UK. The laboratory facilitates chemical diagnosis and the monitoring of patients with neuroendocrine tumours for the northern half of the UK and all of Ireland. Joy Ardill convenes the multidisciplinary group in Belfast and liaises with clinical staff in Dublin in relation to the developing tertiary referral centre in Dublin. She attends the NET Clinic and has co-ordinated many of the treatment trials for neuroendocrine tumour patients in Belfast. She is involved in the assessment of quality of life in patients before during and after treatment.
Professor Ardill is particularly interested in circulating prognostic indicators of Neuroendocrine Tumours and the possibility of treating not only patient symptoms and tumour bulk but treating circulating chemistry also in an endeavour to improve outcome both quality of life and length of survival. She is a founder member the UKINET Society, a director of the Bayliss and Starling Society and member of the Scientific Board of the International RegPep Society. She is Joint Secretary of The European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer, Quality of Life Group. She will host the International RegPep Society, the UKINET annual scientific meeting and a British Isles wide patient Support Group meeting in Belfast in September 2010.
Professor Ardill is joint author of more than 100 peer reviewed publication and she has presented data or been guest speaker at many meetings internationally.