The UK government's chief medical advisor has receieved an honorary doctorate from a North East university.

Proffessor Chris Whitty, a globally recognised physician and epidemiologist but also one of the UK’s most trusted figures during the Covid-19 pandemic, has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Northumbria University.

Professor Whitty received the doctorate in recognition of his clinical and academic contributions and his outstanding leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He is no stranger to the university as he studied for the LLM in Medical Law at Northumbria University and graduated in 2005. So it was a welcome return for him to be back at the university.

Professor Whitty said:“It is a real privilege to be awarded an honorary degree from Northumbria University.

"It is a great University with a strong commitment to research and training future healthcare workers. Congratulations to all the students graduating today.”

OUR MOST POPULAR ARTICLE Hexham Courant readers memories of Baynes Travel in Allendale

Honorary degrees are awarded each year to inspiring people who merit special recognition for their achievements, their links to the University and for inspirational qualities.

Alongside his role as Chief Medical Officer for England and head of the public health profession, Professor Whitty is a practicing NHS Consultant Physician at University College London Hospitals and the Hospital for Tropical Diseases, and Gresham Professor of Physic at Gresham College.

Whilst at Northumbria University, Professor Whitty met with staff across a range of disciplines to find out more about how the University is planning to create a Centre for Health and Social Equity to build on the University’s leading work and ambitions in these areas.

READ Corbridge Chamber Music Festival to take place in July

He visited Northumbria’s state-of-the-art DNA and genome sequencing facility, the NU-OMICS lab, to see first-hand the work of the research team who formed part of the government-backed Covid-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium.

This group worked to map the spread and evolution of Covid-19, developing new methods for detecting variants of concern and variants of interest.

To date, Northumbria researchers have sequenced more than 100,000 SARS-Cov-2 genomes, including two of the UK’s first samples of what became known as the highly contagious Delta variant.