Professor Fraser graduated BSc and PhD from the University of Aberdeen. After a year of postdoctoral work in the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa, he returned to the University of Aberdeen as Lecturer in Chemical Pathology in 1970. From 1975, he was Chief Clinical Biochemist at the then new Flinders Medical Centre in South Australia and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Clinical Biochemistry in the Flinders University of South Australia, later Associate Professor. He returned to Scotland in 1983 and was Director of Biochemical Medicine, NHS Tayside, and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Universities of Dundee and St Andrews. He is currently Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Research into Cancer Prevention and Screening, Honorary Professor, University of Dundee, and Honorary Consultant Clinical Biochemist, NHS Tayside. He has published over 300 papers, 14 book chapters and two monographs, “Interpretation of Clinical Chemistry Laboratory Data” and the best-selling “Biological Variation: From Principles to Practice”: both books have been translated into Spanish and the second also into Japanese, Russian, Italian and Turkish. He has served on many regional, national and international professional bodies. Over the last 20 years, he has been heavily involved in the setting up of the UK Colorectal Cancer Screening Pilot, the development and roll-out of the Scottish Bowel Screening Programme and the assessment of newer faecal tests. He was a founding Member of the Expert Working Group on Faecal Immunochemical Tests for Screening of the Colorectal Cancer Screening Committee, World Endoscopy Organization. He has been honoured in 1966 by the Foundation Award and Honorary Membership of the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Medicine. He has also been honoured in 2017 with the European Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine’s highest award for his important achievements as a scientist in laboratory medicine.

Current research interests include:

Assessment of newer faecal tests in colorectal (bowel) cancer screening and assessment of patients presenting with lower abdominal symptoms:

Making better use of quantitative measurements of faecal haemoglobin concentration, including in risk scoring systems:

Generation and application of data on biological variation and analytical performance specifications.

Impact

Blogs for the Scottish Cancer Prevention Network raise wider awareness of the research performed, most recently:

FIT - a little goes a long way

Scotland is now a FITter nation

Don't stop taking the medicine

Contributed to web discussions on faecal tests, particularly on their use in assessment of symptomatic patients.

Contributed to the activities of Bowel Cancer UK.

Responded in detail to the 2018 consultation on bowel screening of the United Kingdom National Screening Committee.

Gave interview on a publication to BBC Radio Scotland, broadcast 17 July 2018.

The research that has been done over the past more than 20 years by the team has led to full roll-out of the Scottish Bowel Screening Programme, the adoption of new screening algorithms, the introduction of a new quantitative faecal haemoglobin measurement system for the Programme and a wide awareness of the many new clinical applications of faecal haemoglobin concentration measurements, particularly the more novel application of faecal tests in assessment of patients presenting in primary care with lower gastrointestinal symptoms.

PhD supervision

Most recent: Jayne Digby “Faecal haemoglobin in screening and assessment of the symptomatic” 2016