Fellow

David Isenberg is one of the UKs leading academic rheumatologists who is currently the President of the British Society for Rheumatology. Professor Isenberg’s laboratory has a long standing reputation for its interest in the structure, function, origin and pathogenicity of autoantibodies to DNA and phospholipids. His group developed bacterial and eukaryotic expression systems to increase the yield of autoantibodies and to enable the swapping of individual immunoglobulin heavy or light chains, particular domains and individual amino acids to explore the relationship between structure and function of these proteins. His group have made seminal observations on abnormalities in B and T cell signalling molecules which appear to underlie the pathogenesis of lupus. Further studies have included the demonstration that paraoxynase, a key enzyme regulating the oxygenation of lipoprotein is deficient in lupus patients and the antiphospholipid antibody syndrome which may well explain the propensity of patients with these diseases to develop premature atherosclerosis. As chairman of the British Isles Lupus Assessment Group (BILAG) he and his colleagues have developed a disease activity index which is being used worldwide in six major new trials of lupus therapies. The lupus, Sjogren’s and myositis cohorts he has established at UCL have been subject to detailed long term scrutiny and facilitated the development of both activity and damage indices for these serious autoimmune rheumatic conditions. Professor Isenberg’s group were the second only to use TNF alpha therapy in the treatment of patients with rheumatoid arthritis and the first to use antibodies to the IL6 receptor in rheumatoid arthritis and B cell depletion in the treatment of patients with SLE. Professor Isenberg has authored nearly 400 original papers, 200 reviews and chapters and has written or edited 14 books. He was the principal editor of the 3rd Edition of the Oxford Textbook of Rheumatology published recently.