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 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.
Professor Peter Taylor MA PhD FRCP
Consultant Rheumatologist, University of Oxford
Peter C. Taylor holds the Norman Collisson chair of musculoskeletal sciences at the University of Oxford and is a Fellow of St. Peter’s College Oxford. He studied pre-clinical medical sciences at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge and his first degree was a BA(Cantab) Physiology in 1982. He subsequently studied clinical medicine at the University of Oxford and graduated in 1985 with BM and BCh degrees. He was awarded a PhD degree in 1996 from the University of London for research on pathogenesis of arthritis and was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 2000 and a distinguished member of the British Society for Rheumatology in 2016 and delivered the Heberden Round that year.
Professor Taylor has specialist clinical interests in inflammatory arthritis. He has over thirty years’ experience in clinical trial design and international leadership in studies of biologic and small molecular therapies in rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis including the earliest seminal trials of anti-TNF and anti-IL-6 receptor therapy. In experimental medicine studies, Professor Taylor employs targeted therapies as probes of pathogenesis to investigate the in vivo biology of the target in the pathobiology of the disease phenotype under investigation. His related research expertise includes investigation of mechanisms sustaining inflammation and development of novel outcome measurements for application in assessment of response to therapy, including ultrasonographic, PET and high-field magnetic resonance imaging technology. His interest in novel outcome measures also includes new tools for the personalised assessment of well-being which can be used adjunctively to clinical outcome measures in informing management decisions.
Dr James Galloway MBChB MSc CHP MRCP PhD
Consultant Rheumatologist, Kings College Hospital London
Dr Galloway studied medicine in Bristol, before moving to the North West to train in Rheumatology. He trained in epidemiology at the University of Manchester, studying biologic safety using the BSR Biologics Register.
In 2012 he moved to King’s College London to establish his own research group. He continues to maintain an interest in pharmacovigilance, with a focus on the infection risks of immune modulation. In addition, he is the analytics lead for the National Early Inflammatory Arthritis Audit and has also contributed to BSR guidelines (chair of the DMARD guideline working group).
Clinically he works as an honorary consultant rheumatologist at King’s College Hospital, Denmark Hill. His clinical interests are inflammatory arthritis and sarcoidosis.
Dr Galloway is also an enthusiastic educator and is programme director for a post graduate research methods training course, a member of the Rheumatology SCE exams board, and lead for the undergraduate MBBS assessment programme at King’s.
Mrs Alisa Bosworth MBE
Founder and National Patient Champion, National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society (NRAS)
With a professional background in business senior management and marketing in the fields of engineering, computers and audio-visual technologies, Ailsa has lived with severe sero-negative polyarthritis for over 40 years. She founded award-winning charity NRAS in 2001 and led its development into an internationally respected and influential membership organisation for 18 years. She stood down as CEO in June 2019 and took on a new role as National Patient Champion in order to have more time to devote to family and pursue her interests in developing self-management resources and supporting research. As NCP for NRAS, Ailsa contributes on a regular basis to national standards and guidelines through work with NICE, the British Society for Rheumatology, EULAR and others. She is passionate about supported self-management and was Joint Convenor of a EULAR Taskforce to develop recommendations for health professionals to incorporate supported self-management into routine clinical care in order to promote more holistic, patient centred care for people with inflammatory arthritis. These recommendations were published in 2021.
NRAS are leading the way in regard to provision of supported self-management services and resources in RA and are continuing to develop their e-learning programme – SMILE-RA – which launched in September 2021, so that many more can access the education and help they need easily and conveniently. In the light of a changed service delivery landscape in rheumatology due to the pandemic and the introduction of patient initiated follow up, the acquisition of self-management skills by patients is going to be more important than ever.
NRAS are passionate believers that when patients and health professionals work together, this powerful combination has a better chance of realising the outcomes that really matter to patients. Ailsa received an MBE for services to people with Rheumatoid Arthritis in the 2016 New Year’s Honours.
Dr Puja Mehta
Rheumatologist, University College London
Puja Mehta, MD, is a senior specialist registrar in Rheumatology and is undertaking a basic science PhD in post-COVID interstitial lung disease at University College London (UCL), Respiratory Division.
She is a strong proponent of cross-speciality working and has wide clinical practice. Her main research interests are rheumatic-associated interstitial lung disease and immunotherapeutics. She has experience in drug development and the industry-academic interface, having designed a clinical trial in rheumatoid arthritis during a pharmaceutical industry fellowship.
She is the currently chair of the early career research (ECR) network committee and a member of the EULAR COVID-19 task force and Athena Swan committee at UCL. She has published and presented widely, including a recent plenary lecture at the American College of Rheumatology. She is an associate editor for the Rheumatology (Oxford) journal and is part of a team hosts for the Lancet Rheumatology Clinical Realities podcast series. supervises and teaches MSc and medical students at UCL and Imperial College.
Professor Neil Basu
Consultant Rheumatologist, University of Glasgow
Dr Neil Basu is Professor of Musculoskeletal Medicine & Vasculitis at the University of Glasgow. He originally trained at the Universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen and most recently he worked in the world-renowned Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Centre at the University of Michigan.
His research is entirely inspired by his clinical practice where he has always been drawn to areas of considerable need. In particular, he leads programmes of work which investigate the epidemiology of systemic vasculitis and mechanisms of Central Nervous System determined behaviours in inflammatory disease.
Since 2015, he has won 12 grants (£2.6M) as PI and 17 grants (£58.4M) as Co-I from UKRI, EU, NIHR, CSO, Versus Arthritis and industry. In the last 6 years he has authored 53 publications (n=28 as first/senior author) and his citations currently exceed 1000/year. In 2020, The British Society of Rheumatology awarded him their prestigious Michael Mason Award for research excellence in the field of rheumatology.
Among his many other roles, he is current elected chair of the UK & Ireland vasculitis society, an editor of Arthritis & Rheumatology, member of multiple international scientific committees, research and data lead of NHS Scotland’s Vasculitis Managed Clinical Network, chair of speciality specific COVID taskforces, NICE speciality adviser, board member of a national vasculitis charity and research advisory group/grant panel member for major funders, including Versus Arthritis and NIHR.
Professor Patrick Keily PhD FRCP
Consultant Rheumatologist, Kings College Hospital London
Professor Patrick Kiely qualified in medicine from the University of London in 1988 and gained a PhD degree in experimental immunology from the University of Cambridge in 1996. He was appointed consultant physician and rheumatologist at St George’s Hospital in London in 1999 and was department lead from 2002-2018. He was promoted to Professor of Practice in Clinical Rheumatology at St George’s University of London in 2020.
He has a major research interest in the management of rheumatoid arthritis, especially optimal use of conventional synthetic, targeted synthetic and biologic DMARDs. He was a co-author of the 1999 NICE clinical guidelines for the management of RA, and the NICE quality standards for RA in 2011. He has over 100 peer reviewed publications and lectures widely on aspects of RA management in the UK and internationally.
His other interests include idiopathic inflammatory myositis, interstitial lung disease and also haemochromatosis arthropathy. He was a founder member of the Haemochromatosis Arthropathy Research Initiative in 2016, has published research findings on clinical and MRI aspects of this condition and is convenor of the eular task force to develop classification criteria for this condition.
He was an Associate Editor for ‘Rheumatology’ 2017-2020, and has been chairman of the S. Thames, Surrey and Sussex Regional Rheumatology Network since 2007.
Professor Kimme Hyrich MD PhD RCPC
Professor of Epidemiology/Consultant Rhumatologist, The University of Manchester & Manchester University Hospitals NHS Trust
Professor Hyrich completed her Bachelor of Science and Medical degree at the University of Manitoba in Canada. Following this, she trained in Internal Medicine in Winnipeg, Canada and completed a Fellowship in Rheumatology at the University of Toronto. She was awarded her PhD in 2005, supported by a CIHR/Arthritis Society of Canada Research Fellowship at the Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Unit in Manchester. She is now Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Manchester and an Honorary Rheumatology Consultant at Manchester University Hospital NHS Trust.
Her main research interests center on outcomes in adult and paediatric inflammatory arthritis, with a focus on pharmacoepidemiology. Professor Hyrich is a member of the EULAR registries group and the Chief Investigator for the British Society for Rheumatology Biologics Register for Rheumatoid Arthritis as well as the UK JIA Biologics Register. She is National Co-Lead of the UKRI funded CLUSTER-JIA Precision Medicine Consortium. Professor Hyrich was also instrumental in the establishment of the global COVID-19 registers for patients with rheumatic disease.
Dr Elena Nikiphorou MBBS/BSc MD FRCP PGCME FHEA
Consultant Rheumatologist, Kings College Hospital, London
Dr Elena Nikiphorou (MBBS/BSc, MD (Res), FRCP, PGCME, FHEA) is a Consultant Rheumatologist at Kings’ College Hospital and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Kings College London (KCL). She has a clinical and academic interest in inflammatory arthritis, comorbidities and long-term outcomes of disease. She also has a keen interest in medical education with relevant qualifications.
At international level, she is involved in educational activities in Europe as part of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR) including the development of a pan-European portfolio for rheumatology trainees and the creation (first author) of the very first online EULAR educational module on nutrition in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs).
She has been the recipient of multiple awards, bursaries and competitive roles, including the Richard Kovacs prize by the Royal Society of Medicine in 2014, which supported a fellowship in Chicago and the Doris Hillier Award by the British Medical Association in 2018, to support her work on multimorbidity in rheumatoid arthritis and the development of management algorithms tailored to individual need. Outside the UK, she has been the recipient of several international bursaries and awards, including a EULAR-funded educational training fellowship in Finland; an Assessment of SpondyloArthritis international Society (ASAS) award in collaboration with Leiden University, The Netherlands; and a FOREUM Early Career Research grant (2021). She is a trained EULAR methodologist and has participated in multiple EULAR task forces for the development of recommendations, including as a co-convenor (and first author) of the EULAR recommendations on the implementation of self-management strategies in inflammatory arthritis.
Dr James Bluett MBBS MSc PhD
Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Rheumatologist, University of Manchester
Dr James Bluett (MBBS, MRes, MSc, PhD; Orchid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5062-5779) is a senior clinical lecturer and honorary consultant in rheumatology at the University of Manchester.
James has a specialist interest in interventions to improve treatment response in inflammatory arthritis and is an experienced chief investigator.
In 2015 he completed his PhD investigating methotrexate adherence in rheumatoid arthritis and the genetics of methotrexate-pneumonitis. He oversees a large multi-centre observational psoriatic arthritis study. He has presented his research at national and international conferences and has collaborated internationally.
