COVID-19: London Met scientist returns to NHS to help with crisis

Clinical researcher Mohamed Ahmed will return to a former role in a hospital lab, as the NHS strives to rapidly expand its workforce to tackle the pandemic.

Date: 06 April 2020

London Met PhD candidate and Associate Lecturer Mohamed Ahmed is returning to his previous role working at St Thomas’ Hospital in Westminster. He is one of the thousands of former NHS workers returning to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, following the NHS’s drive to expand its workforce in readiness for dealing with the large numbers of people the virus will leave seriously ill.

He will be working in the biochemistry labs getting important results out to physicians, in order to provide correct diagnoses and treatments to patients for an array of health conditions, including those who are confirmed or suspected to have contracted COVID-19.

He said, “I am helping for the duration of this virus crisis to be able to give the best support to the community and ensure patients continue to receive the best care possible. A lot of staff have gone off sick or into self-isolation and this has left a shortage. My helping gives us more manpower that will be needed as the numbers of patients admitted are increasing.”

Mohamed’s PhD at London Met is a biochemistry and Lipidemics project looking at type 2 diabetes, which is being run with the Lipidemics and Nutritional Research Centre (LNRC). His research focuses on polyunsaturated fatty acids and pro-inflammatory cytokines in the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes. He also contributed to the March edition of the Biomedical Scientist, which describes the nature of pandemic viral outbreaks.

Mohamed Ahmed