Professor Andrew Morris, of the University of Dundee, has been appointed the new Chief Scientist for Scotland.

Professor Morris is co-Director of the Medical Research Institute at the University of Dundee and an internationally renowned expert in diabetes and health informatics.

In 2007 he co-founded Aridhia Informatics, a health care informatics company that now employs 50 people in Edinburgh and Dundee, which is exporting Scottish know how to the United Kingdom, Middle East and Australasia.

In 2010 Aridhia Informatics lead a breast cancer informatics project, which was supported by the Dundee Cancer Centre and aimed to create an informatics platform that brings together disparate sources of clinical information relating to breast cancer patients within NHS Tayside to be made available, anonymously, to researchers, clinicians, and patients alike.

The breast cancer demonstrator subsequently formed the basis for a successful Aridhia-led submission to a Stratified Medicine competition being run by the Technology Strategy Board in early 2011. The proposal included the University of Dundee, NHS Tayside, The University of Edinburgh and NHS Lothian as partners, and was awarded just over £2.1million. Officially launched on 27th September 2011, the Dundee Edinburgh Cancer Informatics Programme: Harnessing Excellent Research (DECIPHER) will bring together clinical information around other cancer sites (breast, lung, prostate, colorectal, melanoma, and ovarian), and from the regions represented by these two NHS boards.

Read the University of Dundee press release

Read press releaseabout DECIPHER