Norman Williams

Norman Williams is the Professor and Lead of the Centre for Academic Surgery. His early surgical and academic training was in London and Bristol before moving to Leeds General Infirmary as a Research Fellow, and subsequently Lecturer and Senior Lecturer. He is a colorectal surgeon and his main clinical interests are sphincter preservation, reconstructive surgery and functional bowel disorders and his scientific interests are now concentrated on neurogastroenterology. During his Lecturer years, he went as a Fullbright Scholar to the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and gained particular expertise in gastrointestinal motility. He has won the Patey Prize of the Surgical Research Society, the Moynihan Fellowship of the Association of Surgeons and the BUPA Society of Authors' Prize (jointly) for the textbook "Surgery of the Anus, Rectum and Colon". He was awarded the Nessim Habif Prize for Surgery in 1995 and the Galen Medal in Therapeutics in recognition of the advances made in colorectal surgery in 2002. He was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2004. He has been President of European Digestive Surgery, Vice-Chairman of the Editorial Board of the British Journal of Surgery, Chairman of the UKCCCR Committee on Colorectal Cancer, and a member of the National Cancer Research Network Steering Group. He is President of the Ileostomy and Internal Pouch Support Group of Great Britain, President of The International Surgical Group (2006-07), President elect of the Society of Academic and Research Surgery (2007-09), elected to the Council Of The Royal College of Surgeons of England (2005-11), and is now Chairman of its Academic and Research Board.

Publications:

Key publications:

Chan CLH, Facer P, Davis JB, Smith GD, Egerton J, Bountra C, Williams NS, Anand P. 'Sensory fibres expressing capsaicin receptor TRPV1 in patients with rectal hypersensitivity and faecal urgency'. Lancet 2003; v 361: pp 385-391.

Williams NS, Fajobi OA, Lunniss PJ, Scott SM, Eccersley AJP, Ogunbiyi OA. 'Vertical reduction rectoplasty: a new treatment of idiopathic megarectum'. Br J Surg 2000; v 87: 1203-08.

Williams NS, Patel J, George BD, Hallan RI, Watkins ES. 'Development of an electri­cally stimulated neoanal sphincter'. Lancet 1991; v 338: pp 1166-69.

Quirke P, Durdey P, Dixon MF, Williams NS. 'Local recurrence of rectal adenocarcinoma due to inadequate surgical resection. Histopathological study of lateral tumour spread and surgical excision'. Lancet 1986; v 2: pp 996-99.

Williams NS, Dixon MF, Johnston D. 'Re-appraisal of the 5 centimetre rule of distal excision for carcinoma of the rectum: a study of distal intra-mural spread and of patients' survival'. Br J Surg 1983; v 70: pp 150-54.