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Dorian Haskard

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Dorian Haskard is a rheumatologist, author, and academic. He is an emeritus professor at Imperial College London.

OccupationsRheumatologist, author, and academic
Quick facts Occupations, Academic background ...
Dorian Haskard
OccupationsRheumatologist, author, and academic
Academic background
EducationBA
MBBS
MRCP
MA
DM
Alma materUniversity of Oxford
University of London
Academic work
InstitutionsImperial College London
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Haskard is an elected fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, the Linnean Society of London and the United Kingdom Academy of Medical Sciences.

Education

Haskard studied at the University of Oxford, where he earned a BA in Physiology and Psychology in 1973. He then pursued medicine at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, University of London, graduating with an MBBS in 1977. In 1981, he became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians of London after passing its membership examination. He was later awarded a Doctorate in Medicine by the University of Oxford in 1989.[1]

Clinical and academic work

Haskard was awarded an Arthritis and Rheumatism Council (Versus Arthritis) Research Fellowship at the Bone and Joint Research Unit of the London Hospital Medical College, where he trained in the generation of monoclonal antibodies. He was later appointed to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, where he worked in the laboratory of Morris Ziff.[2] His research identified the role of the adhesion protein LFA-1 in lymphocyte adherence to unstimulated endothelial cells[3] and revealed a novel adhesion mechanism induced by interleukin-1, later attributed to VCAM-1.[4] Upon returning to the UK, he was awarded a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellowship at Guy's Hospital in 1987,[1] where he developed a panel of monoclonal antibodies against endothelial cell surface antigens.[5] Using these antibodies, he conducted histological studies that demonstrated increased adhesion molecule expression in atherosclerosis.[6]

In 1990, Haskard was appointed senior clinical lecturer at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (RPMS) at Hammersmith Hospital,[2] and later became professor of rheumatology and the British Heart Foundation Sir John McMichael Chair in Cardiovascular Medicine in 2016.[1] Following the incorporation of RPMS into Imperial College, his research focused on the role of inflammation in vascular disease.[7] His work included studies on molecular imaging of vascular endothelium during inflammation,[8] the inflammatory potential of vascular calcification in atherosclerotic plaques,[9] the protective role of IgM antibodies in atherosclerosis,[10] the post-transcriptional regulation of tissue factor expression,[11] and the detection of antibodies to oxidized low-density lipoproteins for cardiac risk classification.[12] He served as chairman of the British Atherosclerosis Society from 2008 to 2010.[1]

Haskard's clinical practice centered on inflammatory disorders of the vascular system, particularly Behçet's disease,[7] and his research group was among the first in the UK to study its mechanisms.[13] From 2013 to 2017, he led the rheumatology theme within Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.[1] He also served as president of the International Society for Behçet's Disease[14] from 2018 to 2022.[1] In 2007, he delivered the British Society for Rheumatology's Heberden Oration.[15]

Between 2004 and 2017, Haskard headed the Vascular Sciences Section of the National Heart and Lung Institute. He subsequently led the Division of Immunology and Inflammation from 2010 to 2017, and the Division of Clinical Cardiovascular Science from 2017 to 2018.[1] He served as consul for the Faculty of Medicine in 2019,[16] and as proconsul from 2022 to 2025.[17] He also established the annual Imperial College Science in Medicine School Team Prize and currently holds the title of emeritus professor at Imperial College.[1]

In 2025, Haskard published The Gout: A Medical Microcosm in a Changing World, which explored how 'the Gout' as a medieval concept was distilled into gout as a modern disease.[18]

Awards and honors

  • 1989 – Michael Mason Prize, The British Society for Rheumatology[1]
  • 1991 – Honorary Membership, New Zealand Rheumatology Society[1]
  • 1994 – Fellowship, Royal College of Physicians[19]
  • 2001 – Fellowship, Academy of Medical Sciences[20]
  • 2019 – Fellowship, Linnean Society of London[21]

Bibliography

Books

  • Haskard, Dorian (2025). The Gout: A Medical Microcosm in a Changing World. World Scientific Publishing Europe. ISBN 978-1800616486.

Selected articles

References

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