Tribute to Truda’s pioneering role

5 September 2011

Truda Bell’s retirement. She is in the middle of the back row with Dr John Gallacher to her left and Sir Rory Collins to her right.

Sir Rory Collins, Chief Executive Officer of UK Biobank, was among the guests praising of Truda Bell at her recent retirement from the School of Medicine.

Truda has co-ordinated the UK Biobank’s Participant Resource Centre since it opened at Cardiff in 2006. The Centre is the contact centre for all participants in Biobank, which studies the effect of genes and lifestyle on common diseases in people all round the UK. Truda and her management team, Ana Koleva-Thompson and Maggie Gregory, established the Centre, consisting of 25 staff and designed to cater for 500,000 participants in the study.

Truda has been a valued member of staff at the School’s Department of Primary Care and Public Health for more than 11 years. She joined the Department in 2000, initially to work with Professor Ian Matthews before joining Dr John Gallacher’s team to manage the Caerphilly Prospective Study.  Her success on both these studies made her the natural choice as co-ordinator when the Department won the bid for the Participant Resource Centre.

Truda Bell with her retirement bouquet

Truda was joined by colleagues from across the UK to celebrate her retirement. They included Sir Rory Collins, Chief Executive of UK Biobank, who paid testament to Truda’s dedication and inspirational leadership qualities. He said her team had played an integral role in establishing the UK Biobank Study as the largest epidemiological cohort study in Britain. Truda’s legacy is the Participant Resource Centre which is now in the hands of her trusted management team, who continue to work in partnership with UK Biobank, as well as other epidemiology studies. 

Speaking about Truda’s retirement, Dr John Gallacher said: “Truda Bell was one of the most dedicated and reliable people I have worked with. The mixture of a slightly off-beat sense of humour, self deprecation and varied interests, also made her excellent company. Life is just too quiet now that she has retired!”