Professor Christopher Hawkey is Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Nottingham. Ever since his report in the early 1980’s of steroid-suppressible cyclo-oxygenase, now recognised as COX-2, Professor Hawkey has investigated the role of eicosanoids and other inflammatory mediators in gastrointestinal disease. He developed a clinical trials unit in Nottingham to pursue his approach of moving from the ‘molecule to medicine’. He has been responsible for key trials of drugs in inflammatory bowel disease to protect against the adverse effects on the stomach and duodenum of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.