Dr Emma Drasar is a Consultant Haematologist working between UCLH and the Whittington NHS Trust. She trained at St Barts and graduated from Royal London School of Medicine in 2001 and was awarded a MRCP in 2006. She undertook her specialist Haematology training at King's College Hospital and was awarded an FRCPath in 2015. She has membership with both the British Society of Haematology and the UK Haemoglobinopathy Forum.
From 2009-2013, she worked as a Clinical Lecturer in Sickle Cell Disease at King's College Hospital. During this time, she was awarded a PhD for her research in markers of severity and predictors of organ dysfunction in sickle cell disease. In 2013 she was given the Early Stage Investigator prize from the British Society of Haematology.
Dr Drasar is a Principle Investigator for the BELIEVE trial using luspatacept to improve anaemia in thalassaemia and a Sub-Investigator on a La Jolla trial looking at alternative approaches to iron chelation. She has published 20 papers in peer- reviewed scientific journals and is currently an Honorary Senior Lecturer at University College London.
She is the Thalassaemia lead for the UK Peer Review process, assessing specialist centres for their compliance with the UK standards of care for haemoglobinopathy patients. She is also the Network Lead for the North Central London Red Cell Network, which involved holding educational days, standardising of clinical guidelines and the referral process, and setting up a weekly network MDT for elective queries. Both Whittington Health and UCLH were successful in fully achieving the requested standards for the NHSE Network CQUIN and have achieved specialist haemoglobinopathy team status. Dr Drasar also helped established an automated apheresis service at the Whittington (including 24 hour emergency cover) via NHSBT and a transient elastography service to monitor patients with liver complications.
Dr Drasar is also passionate about training in red cell and iron disorders management, and helped to establish a British Society of Haematology sponsored course in haematology for Core Medical Trainees. Along with Dr Noemi Roy (Oxford) she created the Red Cell Roadshow for Haematology trainees, which provides an in introduction to haemoglobinopathies, targeted at low prevalence areas, which has been extremely successful. Dr Drasar is also regularly invited to speak at Thalassaemia Society events, as well as Red Cells R Us patient support meetings.
Diseases, Medical Tests and Treatments- Sickle Cell Disease
- Thalassaemia
- Rare Anaemias
- Iron disorders including deficiency and iron overload (Haemochromatosis)
- Hyperferritinaemia