A leading Birmingham doctor has been named as the new Medical Director of Anthony Nolan, the charity that finds matches for patients who need lifesaving stem cell transplants.

Professor Charles Craddock, a consultant haematologist and director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, will provide advice on how best to utilise the stem cell donations provided by Anthony Nolan’s 400,000 anonymous donors.

Professor Craddock is an Oxford University graduate who has also studied at the University of Washington, Seattle and the Hammersmith Hospital in London. He is a former President of the British Society of Bone Marrow Transplantation and has an active interest in the design of new drug and transplant treatments for patients with leukaemia.

Anthony Nolan recruits willing donors to its stem cell register and matches them to people who can’t find a matching donor from within their families.  The charity also established a cord blood bank in 2008, offering an alternative to anonymous adult donations. The Queen Elizabeth Hospital is one of only a limited number of English hospitals able to perform cord blood transplants.

Anthony Nolan is in the process of increasing its research and clinical trial activity, an area in which Professor Craddock has tremendous experience. He plays a leading role in the work of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s Centre for Clinical Haematology, which has just been named a National Centre of Excellence by the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research Fund.