About
Dr Nathan Brendish is a NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Infectious Diseases & General Internal Medicine. His research interests focus on the clinical impact of point-of-care tests for infectious diseases.
Dr Brendish’s expertise in rapid diagnostic tests in severe respiratory virus infection stems from his PhD under Professor Tristan Clark at the University of Southampton. Dr Brendish continues to be part of Prof Clark’s research group.
Dr Brendish was the lead study fellow on the ResPOC trial. The ResPOC trial was a large, pragmatic, randomised controlled trial of routine molecular point-of-care testing for respiratory viruses in adults presenting to hospital with acute respiratory illness versus standard care. This showed that multiplex molecular testing at the point-of-care for respiratory viruses improved diagnosis of influenza, improved appropriate neuraminidase inhibitor prescribing, improved appropriate use of isolation facilities, and decreased length of hospital stay. This seminal study was published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine in 2017.
Dr Brendish was also the lead fellow for the CoV-19POC trial of molecular point-of-care testing for SARS-CoV-2, which also showed multiple clinical benefits of ultra-rapid PCR testing, and was published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine in 2020.
Dr Brendish started his research career as a study physician in the NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility, focussing on malaria vaccine trials.
Landmark Publications:
- Brendish NJ, Malachira AK, Armstrong L, ... Clark TW. Routine molecular point-of-care testing for respiratory viruses in adults presenting to hospital with acute respiratory illness (ResPOC): a pragmatic, open-label, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. 2017; 5:401-411.
- Brendish NJ, Poole S, Naidu VV, ... Clark TW. Clinical impact of molecular point-of-care testing for suspected COVID-19 in hospital (COV-19POC): a prospective, interventional, non-randomised, controlled study. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. 2020; 8:1192-1200.
- Clark TW, Beard KR, Brendish NJ, et al. Clinical impact of a routine, molecular, point-of-care, test-and-treat strategy for influenza in adults admitted to hospital (FluPOC): a multicentre, open-label, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Respiratory Medicine. 2021; 9:419-429.
- Brendish NJ, Beard KR, Malachira AK, ... Clark TW. Clinical impact of syndromic molecular point-of-care testing for gastrointestinal pathogens in adults hospitalised with suspected gastroenteritis (GastroPOC): a pragmatic, open-label, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 2023; 23:945-955.
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