Professor Peter Taylor holds the Norman Collison chair of musculoskeletal sciences, and is the Head of Clinical Sciences at the Botnar Research Centre within the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences, and a Fellow of St Peter’s College at the University of Oxford, UK. He was formerly Professor of Experimental Rheumatology at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology Division and Dean of the Charing Cross campus at Imperial College, London, UK.
Professor Taylor studied preclinical medical sciences at Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge, UK, and his first degree was in Physiology. He subsequently studied clinical medicine at the University of Oxford and was awarded a PhD degree from the University of London for research on pathogenesis of arthritis. In the summer of 2015 he was appointed medical director of the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, an outstanding patient-led charity. Professor Taylor chaired the UK government and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Translational Research Partnership in rheumatology from 2015 to 2018; an initiative bringing together the UK's leading academic and clinical centres for experimental medicine and translational research into a ready-formed partnership of Universities and NHS hospitals. He was elected a distinguished member of the British Society for Rheumatology in 2016 and delivered the Heberden Round presentation at the society’s annual meeting that year.
Professor Taylor has specialist clinical interests in inflammatory arthritis. He has over 20 years’ experience in clinical trial design and international leadership in studies of biologic and small molecular therapies in rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis, including the earliest seminal trials of anti-tumor necrosis factor and anti-interleukin-6 receptor therapies, as well as janus kinase inhibition. In experimental medicine studies, Professor Taylor employs targeted therapies as probes of pathogenesis to investigate the in vivo biology of the target in the pathobiology of the disease phenotype under investigation. His related research expertise includes investigation of mechanisms sustaining inflammation and development of novel outcome measurements for application in assessment of response to therapy, including ultrasound, positron emission tomography, and high-field magnetic resonance imaging technology. His interest in novel outcome measures also includes new tools for the personalized assessment of wellbeing, which can be used adjunctively to clinical outcome measures in informing management decisions.