Prof Iris Quasar Grunwald

Dr Prof Iris Grunwald is a clinician, researcher and entrepreneur with a broad experience in interventional Neuroradiology, hospital management and clinical trials.

Learn more about our Neuroscience and Vascular Simulation Unit

Background

Prof Grunwald has conducted collaborative research with several fields in neuroscience- conducting and designing clinical trials, first-in man- and ß-testing of devices and serving as a member of advisory and safety panels. Her teams have secured multi-million pound investment both from the private sector and government funds (InnovateUK, Biomedical Catalyst/Medical Research Council).

As a clinician and associate medical director, Prof Grunwald has extensive experience in hospital quality management and service evaluation. She is the author of the book How to set up an acute stroke service (Springer, 2012).

As Co-founder and Medical Director of the life-science company Brainomix Ltd, an award-winning, ISO13485 and ISO9001 certified start-up company of Oxford University, which specialises in developing medical imaging biomarkers, Prof Grunwald has a sound commercial understanding. Her company was the winner in the ICT category of the European Academic Enterprise Awards (ACES) and shortlisted for Best Emerging UK Medtech Company and Best New UK Medtech Development Programme.

Prof Grunwald is committed to improving patient care which forms the basis of her research.

Spoken Languages

Fluent in English and German. Good working knowledge of French.

Research interests

Catheter skills and clinical pathway development on high-end simulators

• Training courses in interventional procedures on high-end simulators “KEN” eg interventional stroke treatment, intracranial aneurysms, carotid disease, intracranial stenosis, coronary disease
• Team training and individual training of doctors and nurses
• Patient selection, imaging in vascular disease

Neurodevices/medical devices/software

• Device testing for CE mark/FDA submissions
• Development of medical devices
• Design of clinical trials for CE mark, FDA approval
• Advice on CE mark and FDA approval

Core laboratory (reference site)

• Independent image assessment by experts in the field. This minimizes variability, increases data quality and enhances the ability to detect treatment effects
• Assisting sponsors in the use of endpoints that depend on the results of imaging tests both in clinical trials of therapeutic drugs and medical devices
• Guidance on the imaging standards that we regard as important when imaging is used to assess a primary endpoint, or an endpoint component, in a clinical trial

Stroke

• Design, management and running of clinical trials, eg medical device trials
• Preparation of documents for ethics submissions in the UK, Germany and Austria
• Monitoring of clinical trials
• Safety committee
• DMSB
• Evaluation and introduction of medical imaging software
• Collaboration with other stroke centres
• Pre-hospital care and Mobile Stroke Unit

Neuroimaging

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to study how the brain functions, how neurons grow and establish connections and how our memories are encoded. Research interest includes many of the most disabling conditions, such as:

• Stroke
• Multiple sclerosis
• Dementia
• Parkinson’s disease

Research and education

• Supervision of MD research, Mphil and PhD students
• Design, running and management of clinical trials
• Reviewing and writing grants
• Review and writing medical papers
• Running educational conferences and courses

Areas of research supervision

• Prof Grunwald has successfully supervised eight PhD students to completion
• She is currently supervising four PhD, one MD research and one MPhil student

Qualifications

• GMC Registration as a Medical Practitioner with Specialist Registration
• Quality Management in Health Care
• Certificate of Radiation Protection

Memberships, editorial boards

• Vice President of the World Federation for Interventional Stroke Treatment (WIST)

Selected recent publications

Prof Grunwald has authored or co-authored 168 papers and has presented at 300 international meetings. She is the author of the book How to set up an acute stroke service and has contributed to several book chapters in the field of stroke.