Professor Alan Silman FMedSci
Professor of Musculoskeletal Health
University of Oxford
Elected Fellow 2001
epidemiology and public health, rheumatology, epidemiological and genetic aspects of the major rheumatological and musculoskeletal disorders, factors in onset and outcome
Professor Alan Silman is the Arthritis Research Campaign Professor of Rheumatic Diseases Epidemiology at the University of Manchester and Director of the ARC Epidemiology Research Unit. In a unique twin study Alan Silman demonstrated the role of genetic and environmental factors in relation to the occurrence of rheumatoid arthritis. In this disease, with an important female preponderance, his innovative studies have identified the role of pregnancy and breast-feeding on the occurrence of the disease. In order to overcome the short coming of studies on clinic patients Alan Silman established the Norfolk Arthritis Register that recruits all new primary attenders with inflammatory arthritis in a defined population. This cohort has identified for the first time the predictors of outcome, both genetic and clinical, and their relative influence on disease.