The meeting will showcase some of the scientific expertise and leading research being undertaken in the NHS in Leeds. There will be three guest speakers:

Kevin Watterson, retired chief congenital and adult cardiac surgeon - Clinical Director Dept Cardiac Surgery LGI

Dr Alan Anthoney, oncologist specialising in gastro-intestinal and neuroendocrine cancers

Dr Mike Messenger, Deputy Director and Scientific Manager, NIHR Diagnostic Evidence Co-Operative, Leeds

Kevin Watterson will describe the fundamentals of how open heart surgery is possible and the evolution of children's heart surgery so that it is now possible in premature infants under 2kg.

Dr Anthoney will explain what cancer is, how it develops and how gastro-intestinal and neuroendocrine cancers are treated. He will also discuss the value of clinical trials.

Dr Messenger will talk about how NHS care can be personalized by "decoding" our bodies' biological messages. Recent advances have led to the discovery that most diseases can be caused by many different mechanisms, i.e. there is no single cause. This explains why some medicines only work in some patients and can cause harmful side effects or death in others. Precision Medicine may enable us to identify the biological cause of each patient's disease and to select the right treatment for them.