Professor John Terry PhD

Professor John Terry

Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research
Interdisciplinary Professorial Fellow
Director, Centre for Systems Modelling & Quantitative Biomedicine

Contact details

Address
Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research,
College of Medical and Dental Science
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Professor John Terry is Interdisciplinary Professorial Fellow: a post he holds jointly across Mathematics, Computer Science and the Institute for Metabolism and Systems Research. John is also the recipient of a prestigious EPSRC Established Career Fellowship, as well as being an EPSRC Public Engagement Champion within Computer Science. John’s research transcends traditional discipline boundaries speaking to mathematics, computer science, physics, biology, biomedical and clinical sciences. John is internationally renowned for his work at the interface between mathematics, computer science, neurology and neuroendocrinology, holding prestigious visiting fellowships from the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland. John has published over 75 pieces of original research, holds 1 patent with 1 pending, and is co-founder of Neuronostics (a multi-award-winning company established in 2018). John sits on a number of national and international committees including the EPSRC peer-review college, the UKRI future leaders fellowship committee and the Epilepsy Research UK scientific advisory committee. John is also a passionate science communicator and co-wrote and co-directed Beyond My Control: a unique piece of theatre that brings to life what it is like to have epilepsy, the mathematics behind understanding brain networks and how this can be used to better diagnose epilepsy. 

Feedback from Beyond My Control

Qualifications

  • PhD in Applied Mathematics 2000 University of Surrey
  • BSc (Hons) in Mathematics 1997 University of Reading

Biography

John is Interdisciplinary Professorial Fellow, a role he holds jointly between Mathematics, Computer Science and the Institute of Metabolism and Systems Research. This appointment reflects John’s passion for interdisciplinary research and for connecting people from different communities to work collaboratively on biomedical and clinical research challenges. In 2016 John introduced the concept of the “research incubator”: inspired by business incubators but repurposed to serve the needs of interdisciplinary research. Over 40 projects teams have been through the incubator thus far resulting in 2 patents applied for, 30 publications and counting, as well as leveraging over £11M in further funding. John is PI on the EPSRC Network+ award N-CODE, which brings together communities to focus on new solutions for diagnosis and management of neurological conditions in non-hospital settings.

John has been personally supported by almost £20M in research funding since 2006, including the recent award of a 5 year EPSRC Established Career Fellowship. He has published over 75 pieces of original research (in areas as diverse as attractor theory, cardiac arrhythmias, epilepsy, the mammalian stress response and nonlinear laser dynamics). John holds 1 patent with 1 pending, and alongside Wessel Woldman is co-founder of Neuronostics (a spinout established in 2018). John is a passionate science communicator and partnering with Paul Jepson and the Exeter Northcott Theatre co-wrote and co-directed Beyond My Control, a unique piece of theatre that brings to life what it is like to have epilepsy, the mathematics behind understanding brain networks and how this can be used to better diagnose and treat epilepsy.

John is also motivated by developing leadership: both his own and in others. He is a graduate of the Leadership Foundation’s Senior Strategic Leadership Course (2016) and was one of just 14 individuals selected to graduate from the 6th and final cohort of the Wellcome Trust’s Research Leadership Development Programme (2018/19). Partnering with Julian Shreeve, he has established a leadership programme for early career researchers built around developing productive communication skills, needs identification and screening, creating narratives, and interview performance. John has successfully mentored 15 early career researchers to secure independent research fellowships valued in excess of £8M since 2016

Postgraduate supervision

John has a strong track-record of PhD supervision. His first student – Serafim Rodrigues – graduated from Loughborough University in 2006 and is now Ikerbasque Research Professor at the Basque Centre for Applied Mathematics. Since then a further 7 PhD students have successfully graduated under John’s supervision. All have established strong careers in academia or industry, including 3 with permanent academic roles.

John welcomes applications from prospective PhD candidates who seek to push the frontiers of knowledge through mathematical or data science approaches to understanding biological, biomedical or clinical questions.

Research

John has a long track-record in multidisciplinary research with scientists in clinical and experimental neuroscience, where he is internationally renowned for systems modelling approaches in neuroscience and endocrinology, in particular applications to epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis. John’s current research includes:

  • Characterising the evolution of epilepsies using neural modelling techniques, with the aim to create improved diagnosis techniques for clinicians and to better predict treatment outcomes.
  • Developing tools for describing networks of interacting brain regions and characterising seizure initiation based upon network structure.
  • Developing models for interpreting the effects of Deep Brain Stimulation with applications to Parkinson’s and Epilepsy.
  • Exploring the interactions between neural dynamics and hormone secretions in the Hypothalmic-Pituitary-Adrenal axis; by understanding the mechanisms responsible for fluctuations observed in blood concentrations of steroids, more appropriate treatments for a number of clinical conditions may be developed.
  • Developing models of the phenomenology of electrical data recording clinically during radiofrequency ablation therapy for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias.

Other activities

Current activities

  • Epilepsy Research UK Scientific Advisory Committee (2018-DATE)
  • UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship Panel Committee (2018-DATE)
  • Neuronostics Co-Founder and Director (2018-DATE)
  • International League Against Epilepsy Task Force on Network Basis of Disease (2017-DATE)
  • EPSRC Peer-Review College (2011-DATE)

Previous activities

  • MRC Non-Clinical Training and Career Development Panel (2017-2021)
  • MRC Skills Development Panel (2014-2017)

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Marinelli, I, Walker, JJ, Seneviratne, U, D’Souza, W, Cook, MJ, Anderson, C, Bagshaw, A, Lightman, SL, Woldman, W & Terry, J 2023, 'Circadian distribution of epileptiform discharges in epilepsy: candidate mechanisms of variability', PLoS Computational Biology, vol. 19, no. 10, e1010508. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010508

Mason, SL, Junges, L, Woldman, W, Facer-Childs, ER, Campos, BMD, Bagshaw, AP & Terry, JR 2023, 'Classification of human chronotype based on fMRI network-based statistics', Frontiers in Neuroscience, vol. 17, 1147219. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2023.1147219

Grant, AD, Upton, TJ, Terry, J, Smarr, BL & Zavala, E 2022, 'Analysis of wearable time series data in endocrine and metabolic research', Current Opinion in Endocrine and Metabolic Research, vol. 25, 100380. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coemr.2022.100380

Cook, B, Peterson, A, Woldman, W & Terry, J 2022, 'Neural field models: a mathematical overview and unifying framework', Mathematical Neuroscience and Applications, vol. 2, 2. https://doi.org/10.46298/mna.7284

Cao, M, Galvis, D, Vogrin, SJ, Woods, WP, Vogrin, S, Wang, F, Woldman, W, Terry, JR, Peterson, A, Plummer, C & Cook, MJ 2022, 'Virtual intracranial EEG signals reconstructed from MEG with potential for epilepsy surgery', Nature Communications, vol. 13, no. 1, 994. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28640-x

Lopes, MA, Junges, L, Tait, L, Terry, JR, Abela, E, Richardson, MP & Goodfellow, M 2020, 'Computational modelling in source space from scalp EEG to inform presurgical evaluation of epilepsy', Clinical neurophysiology : official journal of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology, vol. 131, no. 1, pp. 225-234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinph.2019.10.027

Zavala, E, Voliotis, M, Zerenner, T, Tabak, J, Walker, JJ, Feng Li, X, Terry, J, Lightman, SL, O'Byrne, K & Tsaneva-Atanasova, K 2020, 'Dynamic hormone control of stress and fertility', Frontiers in Physiology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.24.264234

Woldman, W, Schmidt, H, Abela, E, Chowdhury, FA, Pawley, AD, Jewell, S, Richardson, MP & Terry, JR 2020, 'Dynamic network properties of the interictal brain determine whether seizures appear focal or generalised', Scientific Reports, vol. 10, 7043. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63430-9

Junges, L, Woldman, W, Benjamin, O & Terry, J 2020, 'Epilepsy surgery: Evaluating robustness using dynamic network models', Chaos, vol. 30, no. 113106.

Lopes, MA, Goodfellow, M & Terry, JR 2019, 'A model-based assessment of the seizure onset zone predictive power to inform the epileptogenic zone', Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, vol. 13, 25. https://doi.org/10.3389/fncom.2019.00025

Słowiński, P, Sheybani, L, Michel, CM, Richardson, MP, Quairiaux, C, Terry, JR & Goodfellow, M 2019, 'Background EEG connectivity captures the time-course of epileptogenesis in a mouse model of epilepsy', eNeuro, vol. 6, no. 4. https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0059-19.2019

Lopes, MA, Perani, S, Yaakub, SN, Richardson, MP, Goodfellow, M & Terry, JR 2019, 'Revealing epilepsy type using a computational analysis of interictal EEG', Scientific Reports, vol. 9, 10169 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-46633-7

Smithers, HE, Terry, JR, Brown, JT & Randall, AD 2019, 'Sex-associated differences in excitability within the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis are reflective of cell-type', Neurobiology of Stress, vol. 10, 100143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2018.100143

Letter

Woldman, W, Cook, MJ & Terry, JR 2019, 'Evolving dynamic networks: an underlying mechanism of drug resistance in epilepsy?', Epilepsy & Behavior, vol. 94, pp. 264-268. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2019.03.003

Preprint

Kamaraj, AK, Szuromi, MP, Galvis, D, Stacey, W, Skeldon, AC & Terry, J 2023 'Using compartmental models to understand excitation-inhibition imbalance in epilepsy' bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.11.03.565450

View all publications in research portal