Our Speakers
Professor Karl Gaffney - MBBChBAO(Hons) FRCPI FRCP
Consultant Rheumatologist, Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital
Professor Karl Gaffney (MB, BCh, BAO Hons, FRCPI, FRCP) has been a Consultant Rheumatologist in Norwich since 1995 where he is service lead for axial
spondyloarthritis (including ankylosing spondylitis), adolescent rheumatology and osteoporosis. He is an Honorary Professor at Norwich Medical School, chair of the medical advisory board, National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society (www.nass.co.uk), founder member, treasurer and chair-elect of BRITSpA www.britspa.co.uk), chair of the British Society for Rheumatology (BSR) axial SpA Biologics Guidelines Committee, member of the National Early Inflammatory Arthritis Project Working Group, vice-chair of the BSR Heberden Committee, co-director and founder of the East of England and London Spondyloarthritis Academy (www.rheumatologyevents.org), and an invited member of the Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society www.asas-group.org.
He has also represented the BSR and NASS at the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) appraisal of biological therapies since 2007. He was Rheumatology Service Director from 2008 until 2016, Director of Postgraduate Education in Norwich between 1999 and 2005, and Director of Rheumatology Training, Eastern Deanery between 2001 and 2007.
With NASS he has co-developed primary and secondary care educational programmes for healthcare professionals. These initiatives have been awarded national and European awards for excellence in healthcare communication. He is leading the NASS National Gold Standard Delay to Diagnosis project, launched at the House of Commons in July 2020 www.nass.co.uk/get-involved/gold-standard. His current research interests include epidemiology, dose optimisation and extra-articular manifestations of axial SpA. He oversees a large clinical trials programme and collaborates with other national and international centres. He has published extensively and has been an invited speaker at national and international meetings.
Dr Deepak Jadon - MBBCh(Hons) MRCP(Rheum) PhD
Consultant Rheumatologist, Cambridge University Hospitals
Dr Deepak Jadon is a consultant rheumatologist, Director of the Rheumatology Research Unit, and lead for psoriatic arthritis (PsA) at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.
Having grown up in Cardiff, he graduated from the University of Wales College of Medicine in 2003, and then undertook clinical training in rheumatology and general internal medicine in Bath and Bristol between 2007-2015. He completed his PhD thesis on ‘biomarkers of psoriatic arthritis phenotypes’ at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases (Bath, UK) in 2015.
Deepak has particular expertise in the investigation and management of psoriatic arthritis (PsA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), spondyloarthritis (SpA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). He is qualified in the use of musculoskeletal ultrasound.
Deepak is Director of the Rheumatology Research Unit at Cambridge University Hospitals NHSFT (Addenbrooke’s Hospital), where he leads a team of 5 research nurses, 3 rheumatology fellows, and 2 administrators. They are currently performing >20 clinical trials / studies of novel cutting-edge medications for the treatment of arthritis and other rheumatological diseases.
He is an Associate Principal Investigator in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. His research interests include genetic and serum biomarkers of PsA, AS and SpA, in particular those that predict prognosis.
Deepak is Theme Lead for E-learning at the University of Cambridge Clinical School, delivering high quality online learning to year 4-6 medical student.
Dr Nicola Gullick
Dr Nicola Gullick trained in rheumatology in South London. She completed a PhD in 2011, investigating relationships between MRI and power Doppler ultrasound and the presence of cytokine producing cells in blood, synovial fluid and tissue from patients with inflammatory arthritis.
Nicola was an NIHR Clinical Lecturer at King’s College London before becoming a Consultant Rheumatologist at King’s College Hospital in 2012. She moved to
University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire in 2017, and is now service lead for Spondyloarthropathy, High cost therapies and Rheumatology Research. She is actively involved in a large number of clinical trials of new therapies and treatment strategies for inflammatory arthritis, polymyalgia rheumatica, giant cell arteritis and lupus.
She is a steering committee member and trustee of the British Psoriatic Arthritis Consortium (Brit-PACT), and is on the Psoriatic Arthritis and DMARD monitoring Guideline Working groups of the British Society of Rheumatology. She is an Honorary Lecturer at Warwick Medical School. She is also part of the Arthritis Therapy Acceleration Programme in collaboration with the Universities of Birmingham and Oxford.
Dr Dale Webb
Dr. Dale Webb has been CEO of NASS since November 2017.
He studied Music and English as an undergraduate at the University of Aberystwyth, followed by an MSc and PhD in Health Policy at the University of Southampton. Dale’s PhD was entitled ‘Evaluation in a Policy Environment: Approaches to the evaluation of complex health policy pilots in the UK from 1994 to 2004’.
Dale worked in public health in the 1990s at Salisbury Health Authority and Wessex Regional Health Authority. He then joined the University of Southampton’s Institute of Public Health Medicine where he undertook numerous national evaluations of policy interventions for the English and Scottish Departments of Health.
Since 2006 Dale has worked for charitable organisations, first as Director of Strategy and Evaluation at the Health Foundation, then as Director of Research and Information at the Stroke Association.
Over the last 3 years at NASS, Dale has led the creation of an All Party Parliamentary Group on axial SpA and the Aspiring to Excellence healthcare improvement programme (the largest of its kind in rheumatology in the UK). In July 2020 he launched and A Gold Standard Time to Diagnosis, the first programme of its kind in the world to propose a one year gold standard time to diagnosis for axial SpA.
Professor Matt Brown
Matt Brown is a clinician-scientist who trained initially in medicine and rheumatology in Sydney, Australia before completing a Doctorate of Medicine based at University of Oxford, focusing on genetics of ankylosing spondylitis.
He was appointed Professor of Musculoskeletal Sciences at University of Oxford in 2004. In 2005 Matt returned to Australia, firstly to University of Queensland, and since 2016, at Queensland University of Technology, where he was Professor and Director of Genomics. In 2013 he was elected to Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Sciences in recognition for his achievements in genetics research. In 2019 he moved to King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals NHS Trust to direct their NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, and in 2021 moved to the position of Chief Scientific Officer of Genomics England.
He continues to work in genetics of human diseases, with a particular focus on common and rare bone and joint diseases, and in cancer genomics and personalized medicine. He continues to practice rheumatology, with a particular focus on spondyloarthritis.
Mr William Gregory
Will is a Consultant Physiotherapist working for the Rheumatology Team at Salford Royal Hospital. He is visiting senior lecturer on the Advanced Practice Masters at Manchester Metropolitan University and teaches on the Rheumatology Masters and ASPiRE Programmes at Keele University.
He leads on the Rheumatology MSK Pain service at Salford Royal and runs a twice-weekly Injection Clinic and an Axial Spondyloarthritis Clinic. He is a committee member of AStretch, a national group of physiotherapists driving excellence in the assessment and management of axial SpA, and leads the regional ASSIGNw group. Will leads the team at Salford with regards to its place on the Aspiring to Excellence programme – a QI project looking at decreasing delay to diagnosis in axial SpA and improving all elements of care post-diagnosis.
He sits on the medical advisory board for NRAS. Will is a published author www.researchgate.net/profile/William_Gregory5 and has recently completed first a national survey of rheumatology physiotherapy practice and then co-authored the BSR and CSP-endorsed Rheumatology Physiotherapy Capabilities Framework.
He is active on twitter @PhysioWillGreg
Professor Gareth Jones
Professor Gareth Jones (PhD) is a non-clinical epidemiologist who has worked in the field of arthritis and musculoskeletal health for over 20yrs.
He trained in epidemiology at the University of Manchester in the Arthritis Research Campaign (now Versus Arthritis) Epidemiology Unit. Thereafter, he was appointed Lecturer in Rheumatic Disease Epidemiology, also in Manchester. He moved to the University of Aberdeen in 2005 as Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology and is currently Professor in Epidemiology and deputy head of the Epidemiology Group.
His main research interests centre on the aetiology, outcome, and management of arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions, with a major focus on axial spondyloarthritis, psoriatic arthritis, chronic pain, and fibromyalgia. Working within the Aberdeen Centre for Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Health he works across the whole of the Epidemiology Group research programme, studying the epidemiology of specific clinical conditions, with a focus on modifiable risk factors, which then informs the design of clinical trials and public health interventions.
Gareth’s career research funding exceeds £14million and he has published around 150 research papers, editorials, reviews, and book chapters. He is Chief Investigator of the British Society for Rheumatology Psoriatic Arthritis Register (BSR-PsA) and Deputy Chief Investigator of the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register in Ankylosing Spondylitis.
He has been a co-opted member of the British Society for Rheumatology’s (BSR) Registers Committee since 2012, and an elected member of the British Society for Spondyloarthritis Executive Committee since 2017. He has also served on the BSR’s biologics treatment guideline development groups for both axial spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis.
Dr Pedro Machado
Dr Pedro Machado is an Associate Professor and Consultant Rheumatologist at University College London (UCL), University College London Hospitals (UCLH) and Northwick Park Hospital. His research interests include the assessment and prediction of outcomes in rheumatic diseases, with a focus on axial spondyloarthritis. He has published >200 peer-reviewed articles and received a total of 13 research prizes/awards.
Dr Machado is the past-chair of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) Standing Committee on Epidemiology and Health Services Research (SCEHSR). He is a member of the EULAR Research Committee, the COVID–19 Global Rheumatology Alliance (GRA) Steering Committee, and the EULAR COVID-19 and COVAX Registries steering group. He is a long-standing member of the Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society (ASAS) and in January 2022 he was elected as a member of the ASAS Executive Committee.
Dr Tim Raine
Tim Raine leads the IBD clinical service at Cambridge University Hospitals, UK. Tim is the chair of the ECCO (European Crohn’s and Colitis Organisation) guidelines committee, and is a lead author on several ECCO guidelines – both current and in development. He serves on the UEG Scientific committee and on the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) IBD Clinical Research Group. Tim also heads the IBD trials unit in Cambridge and is lead investigator of several clinical trials. He is an honorary faculty member of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre, UK. His research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, CCFA, Crohn’s and Colitis UK, OpenTargets and the National Institute for Health Research, focuses on regulation of the gastrointestinal immune system.
Dr Laura Savage
Dr Laura Savage is a Consultant Dermatologist (Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust) with a special interest in Medical Dermatology and Honorary Senior Lecturer (Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Leeds). She is co-lead for the complex psoriasis service and has extensive experience in utilising targeted immunomodulatory therapies. Dr Savage also has a keen interest in Hidradenitis Suppurativa and leads a tertiary HS clinic bi-monthly.
Her PhD focused on investigating the imaging and laboratory responses of subclinical disease within the synovio-entheseal complex in patients with moderate to severe psoriasis treated with biologic therapy. Her research interests cross the boundaries of both dermatology and rheumatology and relate to the development of strategies to detect and manage early psoriatic arthritis in patients with psoriasis. Dr Savage has recently been elected to the Group for Research in Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA) Steering Committee and has co-authored their published guidelines on the detection and treatment of enthesitis. She is also an invited member of the EULAR Task Force on Points to Consider for the definition of clinical and imaging features suspicious for progression to psoriatic arthritis. Dr Savage is also an elected committee member of the British Society of Medical Dermatology. She takes and active role in medical education on a national and international level.
Dr Raj Sengupta
Dr Raj Sengupta is a Consultant Rheumatologist and Lead for Rheumatology and Axial Spondyloarthritis (axSpA) at The Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, Bath (RNRHD).
He is a member of the British Society for Rheumatology (BSR) axSpA Biologics Guidelines Committee and a member of Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society (ASAS). He has represented the BSR at the NICE TA383 appraisal for anti-TNF in axSpA. Dr Sengupta is a medical advisor for the National Axial Spondyloarthritis Society (NASS) and is one of the founder members of the British Society for SpondyloArthritis (BRITSpA). Dr Sengupta was the recipient of the 2016 NASS Patients Choice award for the Best Care provided by a Rheumatologist.
Dr Sengupta is the principal investigator in several national and international clinical trials in axSpA. He has a number of peer reviewed publications on axSpA. Dr Sengupta has been an invited speaker on axSpA at several national and international meetings.
Dr William Tillett
Dr William Tillett (MBChB, BsC hons, PhD, FRCP) is an honorary consultant rheumatologist at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases and senior lecturer in the department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology and Centre for Therapeutic Innovation at the University of Bath, UK. He graduated from the University of Bristol with a BSc in Anatomical Science before undertaking his medical degree at the same institution.
He undertook his doctoral fellowship in outcome measurement in psoriatic arthritis. His current research interests centre on the assessment of psoriatic arthritis (clinical, composite, radiographic and patient reported outcome), early detection of disease and treatment strategies. He the lead for biologic and targeted synthetic drug treatment at the RNHRD and oversees a portfolio of national and international clinical commercial trails and investigator-initiated studies. He was awarded a EULAR Clinical Scientist award in 2015 and has published more than 190 peer reviewed articles, guidelines, book chapters or conference proceedings on the assessment and treatment of psoriatic arthritis.
He currently co-chairs the British Society of Rheumatology (BSR) psoriatic arthritis biologic guideline committee and international psoriatic arthritis Outcome Measurement in Rheumatology (OMERACT) working group. He sits on the Group for Research and Assessment of Psoriasis and Psoriatic Arthritis (GRAPPA: https://www.grappanetwork.org/) steering committee and trustee for two arthritis charities including the Bath Institute for Rheumatic Diseases (BIRD: https://www.birdbath.org.uk/) and the British Psoriatic Arthritis Consortium (BritPACT: https://www.britpact.org/)
Dr Sizheng Steven Zhao
Steven is a NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer at the Centre for Epidemiology Versus Arthritis, University of Manchester. He graduated from the University of Liverpool in 2012 and began combined clinical and research training at Liverpool University Hospitals. His PhD thesis was on the prevalence, patterns and impact of comorbidities in axial spondyloarthritis. (One sentence summary: comorbidities – particularly mental health conditions – are common and important for every aspect of management.)
Steven’s research to date has mostly applied epidemiological methods to registry and routine healthcare data. For this, he trained with the rheumatology and pharmacoepidemiology group at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, USA. Recognising the limitations of many observational designs, he undertook a fellowship with the University of Bristol to complement these approaches with genetic epidemiology, for example, using genetic variants to reduce traditional sources of bias such as confounding. Steven’s research aspirations are to integrate both approaches to improve management of inflammatory arthritides.
Steven has over 80 publications and is an associate editor of the journals Rheumatology (Oxford) and Clinical Therapeutics. He is also an executive board member of the British Society for Spondyloarthritis (BritSpA), medical advisory board member for the charity NASS (National axial spondyloarthritis society), and associate member of the Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS).
