NIHR Advanced Fellowships are prestigious national research awards aimed at supporting the career development of leading clinical researchers. Ken’s four-year fellowship will help form new research collaborations and provide training opportunities to further build upon his established programme of translational research, enabling tangible benefits for patients and the wider society.
Ken's research focuses on rheumatoid arthritis, a common disease affecting 1% of UK adults where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the joints causing joint pain, stiffness and swelling known as arthritis flares. Historically RA often caused joint damage and disability, though modern arthritis drugs can switch off the disease in at least half of patients to achieve remission. However, these powerful drugs carry risks of severe toxicity and infection, can be unpleasant to take, and require time-consuming and expensive blood test monitoring. Current clinical guidelines describe how to increase drug treatment to achieve remission, though give very little guidance on what to do once remission is achieved. Many patients with RA in remission would like to try reducing their arthritis drugs, though around half of patients who attempt drug tapering will have an arthritis flare, which is currently impossible to predict.
Ken’s research aims to identify markers of the immune system that when measured before drug tapering can predict the risk of future arthritis flare. His NIHR Advanced Fellowship will examine how such flare prediction markers could help support patients make shared decisions on drug tapering, reducing the burden of arthritis drug treatment for both patients and healthcare systems. Ken has close links with the NIHR Newcastle BRC, having previously been awarded BRC doctoral and postdoctoral funding, and supported by the Newcastle Health Innovation Partners (NHIP) Academy through a Senior Clinical Fellowship. He is also the BRC Emerging Leader for patient and public involvement and engagement (PPIE), helping to ensure that patients and the public are at the heart of our research activities. He is an Honorary Consultant Rheumatologist at Newcastle Hospitals, where he co-leads the Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement in Musculoskeletal reSearch (PIMS) group.
Commenting on his Fellowship award, he says:
“I am truly honoured to be awarded this NIHR Advanced Fellowship, which provides exciting opportunities to take my research to the next level. I am extremely grateful for the support provided by the NIHR Newcastle BRC and the NHIP Academy, and look forward to continuing to work with both organisations during my fellowship.”