Expertise

---

Robert qualified in medicine at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School London with dual honours, completing an additional intercalated honours BSc in Immunology during his third year there. He subsequently studied at the University of Oxford, undertaking a PhD and then became Lecturer (Clinical)  in Rheumatology at the University of Birmingham. Robert moved to Harvard Medical School, to continue his research as Wellcome Advanced Training Fellow, before returning to the UK to establish a new academic rheumatology unit in Liverpool.

As a translational clinical scientist, he has published more than 200 articles in international high ranked medical journals and leads a research team that works on understanding and treating rheumatic diseases from the molecular level to the bedside and clinic. Important areas of focus for his work, funded by research grants exceeding £5 million, include: elucidating the role of neutrophils in rheumatoid arthritis (with the discovery of a new blood test that can for the first time predict responses to expensive biologic drugs), better treatment for osteoarthritis (initiating and leading a major clinical trial testing a novel drug for osteoarthritis) and developing a personalised medicines treatment for Behçet’s syndrome (chief investigator for a major NIHR/MRC trial of biologics for this condition).

His clinical work is fully integrated with his research. He regularly receives referrals to treat patients with rheumatic diseases not only from his locality and region, from also from the rest of the UK and many countries abroad. He is a member of the British Society for Rheumatology, the Association of Physicians and is Fellow of the American Society for Rheumatology. Robert has strong links with rheumatologists around the world and has helped lead the development of Rheumatology care for Sub-Saharan Africa, where he is a regular visitor. He is also a Director of the USA not for profit organisation Rheumatology for all that supports the development of rheumatology in Africa. 

Robert has won many awards such as the Michael Mason Prize for Rheumatology research and has an NHS ACCEA Gold merit award (since 2015) for clinical excellence. He leads the European League against Rheumatism (EULAR) Centre for Excellence in Rheumatology, Liverpool and the National Centre for Behçet’s Syndrome, Liverpool and is invited, each year, to be keynote speaker at international rheumatology meetings on each continent (currently with the exception of Antarctica!). He is past Editor of the major international Journal, Rheumatology, and regularly advises NICE (chairing the panel that devised national Quality Standards for Rheumatoid Arthritis and the pharmaceutical Industry at a global level.