Heberden Round
Tuesday, 23 April, 16.30 - 17.30
Professor Caroline Gordon
Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Birmingham
Consultant Rheumatologist at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
Tuesday, 23 April, 16.30 - 17.30
Professor Caroline Gordon
Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Birmingham
Consultant Rheumatologist at Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
Caroline Gordon set up the Birmingham lupus cohort soon after her arrival in Birmingham as a clinical lecturer in 1989. She has undertaken clinical work and teaching as a consultant rheumatologist at City Hospital, Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, University Hospital Birmingham Foundation NHS Trust since 1996. She also has a clinic at Birmingham Women’s Hospital for women with systemic rheumatic diseases (particularly lupus and anti-phospholipid syndrome but including severe rheumatoid arthritis, systemic sclerosis and vasculitis) in pregnancy and for those who need pre-pregnancy counseling, The Birmingham lupus clinics have been awarded the title of LUPUS UK Centre of Excellence since 2005, the first lupus centre in the UK to receive this award.
Caroline was awarded the title of Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Birmingham in 2007. Her research programme focuses on systemic lupus erythematosus but she has contributed to research in to inflammatory arthritis, vasculitis, Sjögren’s syndrome and anti-phospholipid syndrome as well. Much of her work has focused on disease assessment for clinical trials and outcome studies, particularly the development of the BILAG disease activity index and the epidemiology of lupus. She has been involved in the development of the SLICC/ACR damage index and in the assessment of quality of life in lupus patients using the SF-36 and the Lupus QoL surveys. She has a longstanding interest in improving the treatment of systemic lupus erythematosus and has been involved in organising three investigator led trials. The two UK based trials were IV cyclophosphamide versus oral cyclophosphamide in lupus nephritis (EULAR sponsored) and cyclosporine versus azathioprine in severe SLE (Arthritis Research UK funded). She led the initiative producing EULAR points to consider for conducting clinical trials in SLE and advises the pharmaceutical industry on organising and analysing lupus clinical trials. She has been closely involved in the development of epratuzumab, an anti-CD22 targeted monoclonal antibody therapy for lupus. She has worked with Lupus UK and Lupus Europe as well as the NIHR to promote patient involvement in clinical trials.
She is a consultant to the Centre for Disease Control on epidemiological studies of lupus in the USA, and to Lupus Foundation of America on their clinical trials training programme (POINT). Her other research interests include clinical and laboratory markers of disease flare, the importance of ethnicity in predicting disease susceptibility and long-term outcome, and the health of children born to mothers with lupus.She is a member of the British Isles Lupus Assessment Group (BILAG), the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC), Co-Chair of the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) Task Force for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and has been a member of several British Society for Rheumatology, American College of Rheumatology and Lupus Foundation of America committees for lupus research. She has been the lupus lead on the Arthritis Research UK systemic autoimmune disease clinical study group and Chair of the national Comprehensive Clinical Research Network (CCRN) Immunology and Inflammation Specialty Group for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) since 2008.
