Professor Paul Emery

Profile

Professor Emery was Cambridge undergraduate 1971(Churchill College), did clinical training at Guy’s and undertook early specialist training at Guy’s and Brompton. After completing his accreditation in Rheumatology and GIM. he became Head of Rheumatology at Walter & Eliza Hall Institute and Consultant at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1985. He returned to the University of Birmingham as a Senior Lecturer in 1987.  Since 1995 he has been AR UK Professor of Rheumatology in Leeds and Head of Department (-2018). Leeds under his direction is one of the worlds’ largest and most highly rated centres. Since 2009 he has been Director of the Leeds NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.  

Professor Emery was President of EULAR 2009-2011, the European Society for Rheumatology, the first UK President for 25 years.  He has served on the editorial boards of all the major rheumatology journals. He was inaugural President of ISEMIR (International extremity MRI society). He has been an NIHR Senior Investigator since 2008. He is a recipient of the Roche Biennial Award for Clinical Rheumatology; the Rheumatology Hospital Doctor of the Year award 1999; and EULAR prize 2002 for outstanding contribution to rheumatology research. In 2012 he was awarded the Carol Nachman Prize, the top international prize for rheumatology. In 2018 he was made Master of the American College of Rheumatology and was awarded an OBE by the Queen for services to Rheumatology.

Professor Emery’s research interests centre around the immunopathogenesis and immunotherapy of rheumatoid arthritis, SpA, psoriatic disease and connective tissue diseases.  He has a special interest in the factors leading to persistent inflammation. He was instrumental in bringing sensitive imaging (MRI/US) into rheumatology practice. He established the concept of early intervention in inflammatory arthritis, with a model for early arthritis now adopted throughout the world.  He is currently focusing on the prevention of autoimmune diseases with national programmes identifying patients in the pre-clinical phase.  This prevention strategy is applied not only to inflammatory arthritis but to systemic lupus erythematosus, Sjogren’s syndrome, scleroderma and psoriatic disease. He has published >1100 peer-reviewed articles in this area, he has an h factor of >140.

Responsibilities

• Director. Leeds Biomedical Research Centre

Research interests

• Inflammatory Arthritis
• RA
• Psoriatic arthritis
• AS
• SLE
• Scleroderma
• Sjogrens Syndrome
• Immunotherapy
• Disease prevention
• Ultrasound, MRI imaging

Qualifications

• MA, MD, MBBChir, FRCP, FRCPE, FMedSci, MACR
• MACR OBE

Professional memberships

• BSR
• ACR
• EULAR
• BMA
• RCP

Student education

Undergraduate rheumatology teaching.  

Supervising multiple postgraduate students

Research groups and institutes

• Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine
• Immunity and inflammation
• Musculoskeletal disease
• Targets and therapies
• Autoimmune Connective Tissue Diseases
• Dermato-Rheumatology Group
• Imaging
• Inflammatory Musculoskeletal