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Dr Mamta Garg has been a consultant Haematologist since 2002 and has been working at Leicester Royal Infirmary since 2005. She has a special interest in Plasma cells (Multiple Myeloma MGUS and Amyloidosis) and Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (Polycythaemia Vera, Essential Thrombocythaemia and Myelofibrosis). She is specifically interested in making early diagnoses of myeloma and has made changes in clinical practice and writes regularly to GPs via a newsletter.

Dr Garg undertook her undergraduate and postgraduate medical training at BJ Medical College Pune India, obtaining her MD in medicine from the University of Poona. Following this, she worked as a postgraduate at PGIMER Chandigarh before migrating to the UK. She then undertook her specialist training in Haematology in Manchester working towards an MD in Molecular Haematology at Manchester Royal Infirmary under the guidance of Prof JAL Yin. During this time she worked on minimal residual disease in acute myeloid leukaemia using the WT1 gene as a marker.

Dr Garg is a Chair of the British Society of Haematology Taskforce for Guidelines in General Haematology and sits in the MPN subgroup of the NCRI Haemato-Oncology Clinical Research Group. She has been part of many advisory boards of pharmaceutical companies specialising in myeloma and MPN. She is a member of the British and European Society of Haematology and International Myeloma Working Group (IMWG)

She is Subspecialty Lead for NCRI East Midlands for Malignant Haematology in division 1 and non-malignant haematology in Division 3 and is committed to a healthy trial portfolio in national and international clinical trials across East Midlands.

Her own Clinical trials portfolio at Leicester is as follows: Dr Garg has been Chief Investigator for 3 international clinical trials in myeloma. She has been Principal investigator for 31 trials and sub-investigator in 5 trials in the last 5 years, many of which have led to oral and poster presentations in international meetings and publications in high impact journals. This has given Leicester the Myeloma Team a well-deserved national and international recognition. She is on the panel for Trial management groups, Guidelines writing committee, advisory boards for pharmaceutical companies and scope consultations for NICE and has been awarded Associate Professorship by the University of Leicester.

By taking part in clinical trials, patients have availed to new drugs years before they are available on NHSE/CDF that has led to significantly increased overall survival and quality of life. Moreover, trial activity has directly saved in our usage on NICE and Cancer drug fund approved drugs. Figures periodically presented to the CCG and have allowed increasing our clinical nurse and pharmacy support in the trials unit.

Her real interest lies in real-world data collection and publication for peer review and annual reports and understanding diseases and outcomes.

· She has recently published data on my ITP cohort on whom I have been collecting data prospectively for the last 10 years.

· She has worked on the use of Pegylated interferon (Pegasys) in MPNs and has presented data in a national and international meeting on its use in a single centre and am collecting UK wide data via NCRI MPN subgroup committee. We plan to make a case for making Pegasys available to all trusts as well as to Roche as the plan is to stop manufacturing it by 2026.

· She plans to take part in an international audit project again on real-world data in Myeloma called HONEUR project and we are in the midst of implementing it. To get help with the data collection, analysing results and publication – I am working with a medical student in her LINK project.

· Her original data collection on Urine PCR and ACR has now been incorporated into the algorithm in suspecting myeloma.

· She is passionate about raising awareness about myeloma and early diagnosis and work closely with primary care physicians via regular GP newsletter lectures and advice and guidance.