{"id":2410,"date":"2021-02-11T10:48:47","date_gmt":"2021-02-11T10:48:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mft.nhs.uk\/wythenshawe\/international-day-of-women-and-girls-in-science-profile-professor-jacky-smith\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T14:05:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T14:05:02","slug":"international-day-of-women-and-girls-in-science-profile-professor-jacky-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mft.nhs.uk\/wythenshawe\/international-day-of-women-and-girls-in-science-profile-professor-jacky-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"International Day of Women and Girls in Science: Profile \u2013 Professor Jacky Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n \"\"Professor Jacky Smith is Director of the <\/strong>NIHR Manchester Clinical Research Facility (CRF<\/strong><\/a>), Honorary Consultant at Wythenshawe Hospital \u2013 part of <\/strong>Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (MFT)<\/strong><\/a> \u2013 Professor of Respiratory Medicine at <\/strong>The University of Manchester<\/strong><\/a> and Programme Lead for <\/strong>Improving Respiratory Symptoms<\/strong> within the <\/strong>NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC)<\/strong>.<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n[\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]As one of the country\u2019s leading clinical academics in the field of cough, Professor Jacky Smith is one of our most prominent female researchers. We profile her to mark <\/strong>International Day of Women and Girls in Science.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe clinical side of my role is in respiratory medicine<\/a>, so I look after people with conditions such as lung disease and long-term coughing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a researcher, I study the cough reflex and, with my team, have developed a system to measure and monitor cough. I run a multi-disciplinary research team and we are quite far down the track with a new drug, which we hope will become available to patients in the next few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the first ever treatment for chronic cough and the first drug in its class \u2013 so it\u2019s enormously exciting.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

Health research often takes many years to translate from ideas, through clinical trials and licencing of a new treatment that eventually becoming available to patients. Indeed, Professor Smith began research into cough monitoring as part of her PhD, more than 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are starting to see some of that initial research come to fruition now with this new drug. Seven or eight years ago I led a proof of concept study \u2013 just with patients in my cough clinic at Wythenshawe Hospital \u2013 and the amount of coughing was reduced by 75 per cent, measured using our cough monitoring system.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are people who have tried lots of treatments already with no benefit and it makes them miserable, it really does.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Professor Smith subsequently led larger-scale studies; with the results of two Phase III trials indicating that the new drug, Gefapixant, can ease the often-distressing symptoms of chronic cough<\/a>,.<\/p>\n

The results of one trial \u2013 the largest of its kind, running for 12 weeks and involving 253 patients \u2013 were published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine<\/a>. The results of an additional 16-day study, involving 57 patients, were published in the European Respiratory Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Professor Smith and colleagues reported results of the larger-scale Phase 3 trial in September 2020 and are hoping to publish the results during 2021.<\/p>\n

But despite being on the verge of a breakthrough, Professor Smith may never have pursued the clinical research route at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did some research because I thought I needed to in order to be competitive for a consultant job and then I loved it. It wasn\u2019t like I had a burning desire to be a researcher, everyone around me had done some, but then I really liked it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of women in science, I\u2019m a respiratory doctor and there are lots of women in the field, I\u2019m not on my lonesome at all!\u00a0 But there are a lot less female clinical academic scientists in this area.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t fully know the reasons why; the clinical research world is very competitive and women tend to end up with more of the caring duties and have time out to have children, so maybe that does set them at a bit of a disadvantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we need women in science, because we need the best people in the field doing the best science, and there should be no barriers to that, be it gender or race or anything else.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Despite having few female contemporaries in cough research, Professor Smith has peers in related fields she draws inspiration from.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Director of Manchester CRF Director, it\u2019s fantastic to see so many talented female researchers working within it. I\u2019m proud that our CRF is able to help nurture the careers of a diversity of gifted young researchers. \u2019m also part of the executive committee for the Manchester Biomedical Research Centre and I am very proud of the good equality we have within our BRC, with many female research theme leads.<\/p>\n

\u201cProfessor Maria Belvisi, Head of the Respiratory Pharmacology group at Imperial College London\u2019s Heart and Lung Institute<\/a>, is a good friend and role model in a similar field and I still collaborate with her, even though she\u2019s very busy as a Senior Vice President at Astra Zeneca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving female role models is so important, as it\u2019s quite hard for people to imagine themselves doing something if they can\u2019t see role models like themselves.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

But while she has many female peers and role models who inspire her, she asserts that we need more women within senior leadership in science and clinical research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I used to get invited to boards and conferences, they were all male and they all knew each other! So that was quite tough at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I soon got to know them, so I don\u2019t find it intimidating now \u2013 but that\u2019s definitely something I developed over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven at school, I was one of a small number of girls in the A-level group, but I was just quite good at science and maths and I wasn\u2019t going to let being outnumbered by boys stop me doing what I was interested in.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

To encourage other girls to pursue a career in science, health and research, Professor Smith \u2013 in collaboration with Vocal<\/a>, \u00a0a not for profit organisation, hosted by MFT in partnership with The University of Manchester \u2013 has been involved in public involvement work with children, something she\u2019d like to do more of in future.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving women and girls in science is important, and hopefully showing that you can come from a fairly ordinary background, with working class parents and from a comprehensive school and still become a science professor, can help in a small way.\u201d[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]As one of the country\u2019s leading clinical academics in the field of cough, Professor Jacky Smith is one of our most prominent female researchers. We profile her to mark International Day of Women and Girls in Science. \u201cThe clinical side of my role is in respiratory medicine, so I look after people with conditions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[13,145,146,18,147],"class_list":["post-2410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-research","tag-respiratorye","tag-women","tag-wythenshawe","tag-wythenshawhawe"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nInternational Day of Women and Girls in Science: Profile \u2013 Professor Jacky Smith - Wythenshawe Hospital<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mft.nhs.uk\/wythenshawe\/international-day-of-women-and-girls-in-science-profile-professor-jacky-smith\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"International Day of Women and Girls in Science: Profile \u2013 Professor Jacky Smith - Wythenshawe Hospital\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[vc_row][vc_column][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=””]As one of the country\u2019s leading clinical academics in the field of cough, Professor Jacky Smith is one of our most prominent female researchers. 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