NHS consultants
The Mellanby Centre works closely with leading consultants in the field of bone medicine. Click below to learn more about their work and read their publications.
Dr Paul Arundel
Consultant in Paediatric Metabolic Bone Disease, Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
Email: paul.arundel@nhs.net
Dr Paul Arundel has been the lead consultant for the service for children with bone diseases at Sheffield Children’s Hospital for a decade. His work encompasses the delivery and improvement of care to children and young people with a wide range of rare bone diseases through collaboration and multidisciplinary team working. He enjoys close links with co-located colleagues in orthopaedics, spinal surgery, neurosurgery, genetics and radiology as well as with partners in the Mellanby Centre for Bone Research.
Clinical activity and research interests extend to a wide range of skeletal disorders in childhood. Sheffield is one of four centres in England commissioned to provide care for children with complex childhood osteogenesis imperfecta and one of three paediatric centres able to prescribe asfotase alfa (recombinant alkaline phosphatase) to children with severe, childhood-onset hypophosphatasia. Alongside “general” clinics for children with known or suspected bone disease, he runs paediatric clinics dedicated to achondroplasia, and to disorders of mineralisation.
He is the local Principal Investigator for a number of commercially-sponsored clinical trials and open-label extension drug studies in children with achondroplasia, including one of a small molecule CNP agonist, and another of a small molecule specific tyrosine kinase inhibitor. He was previously involved in the early phase trials of asfotase alfa that led to its licensing and adoption into NHS practice, a clinical trial of denosumab in childhood osteogenesis imperfecta, and both placebo-controlled and dose-ranging studies of risedronate. He is a local investigator for commercially-sponsored natural history and registry studies of children with achondroplasia, X-linked hypophosphataemic rickets and hypophosphatasia.
He is a member and former secretary of the British Paediatric and Adolescent Bone Group, a network which includes most clinicians and researchers from across the British Isles with an interest in children’s bone disease and health. He works with patient groups including the Brittle Bone Society and the National Osteoporosis Society. He currently serves as vice-chair of the Highly Specialised Technology Evaluation Committee of the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, having served as a committee member since 2018.
View Paul Arundel’s publications
Mr Ashley Cole FRCS (Tr & Orth), DM
Consultant Orthopaedic Spine Surgeon, Sheffield Children’s & Northern General Hospitals, Sheffield
Email: ashley.cole4@nhs.net
Mr Ashley Cole is a Consultant Orthopaedic Spine Surgeon working at Sheffield Children’s and Northern General Hospitals, Sheffield from 2003. Since 2005 the Sheffield Spinal Centre has trained many Spinal Fellows in adult and paediatric spinal surgery, equipping them with the skills they need to be Spinal Consultants.
Whilst on the British Association of Spine Surgeons (BASS) Executive between 2010 and launch in 2012, Ashley co-developed the British Spine Registry (BSR) with Mr Lee Breakwell which collects patient reported outcome and experience measures on patients having spinal surgery in the UK. In July 2024, there are over 300,000 patients on the BSR. He became the first Chair of a British Orthopaedic Association group developing the newer Orthopaedic Registries (TORUS) and has re-joined the BASS Executive as BSR Lead (2023-2027).
Since 2005, he has been the Spinal Chair of the Orthopaedic Expert Working Group advising the NHS on spinal coding, healthcare resource groups and tariff. After being a member of the last NHS Spinal Taskforce in 2010/11, he became Chair of the Spinal Services Clinical Reference Group advising NHS England on commissioning specialised spinal surgery and spinal cord injuries. During this role between 2012 and 2019, a national service specification for specialised spinal surgery was introduced and Regional Spinal Networks were developed. Ashley was President of the British Scoliosis Society from 2021-2023.
Since 2019 Ashley has returned to clinical research in spinal surgery and is currently Chief Investigator of the NIHR HTA funded Bracing Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (BASIS) study, a multi-centre RCT comparing full-time versus night-time bracing. He is also a co-applicant on the NIHR HTA funded PRAISE trial (Pain Relief After Instrumented Spinal surgEry) evaluating the effectiveness of erector spinae block, intra-thecal opiates and usual care in instrumented lumbar spine fusion and the FORENSIC trial (FusiOn veRsus bEst coNServatIve Care) evaluating the clinical and cost-effectiveness of lumbar fusion surgery for patients with persistent, severe low back pain. He is leading new research looking at the data in the British Spine Registry.
View Ashley Cole's publications
Professor Paul Dimitri BSc, MBChB, FRCPCH, PhD
Professor of Child Health and Consultant in Paediatric Endocrinology; Director of Research & Innovation, Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust
Email: paul.dimitri@nhs.net
Professor Paul Dimitri is an Honorary Professor of Child Health and a Consultant in Paediatric Endocrinology at Sheffield Children’s Hospital. He is also Director of Research and Innovation at Sheffield Children’s Hospital and Division Lead for the Division of Child Health, Genetics, Non-malignant Haematology and Reproductive Health and Child Health at the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Clinical Research Network. Paul studied Medicine at the University of St Andrew’s, Scotland where he received a medal in pathology and the University of Manchester where he received a Distinction in Paediatrics. He moved to Sheffield in 1998 where he trained in Paediatrics and Paediatric Endocrinology. In 2010 he was awarded a PhD in Medicine from the University of Sheffield for his work on the relationship between obesity and skeletal health in children, and received his Fellowship of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. He was subsequently appointed as a Consultant in Paediatric Endocrinology in 2010 and an Honorary Professor of Child Health in 2014.
Paul’s research focus is on the impact of obesity on skeletal development and the development of novel skeletal imaging modalities. He has been invited to give lectures both nationally and internationally and has published in key peer-reviewed journals in his field of research.
He was awarded the Michael Blacow Memorial Prize by the RCPCH for his work relating to the impact of childhood obesity on skeletal health, and has received two research prizes from the British Society of Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes to support his work. Paul has led on an initiative to establish a National Paediatric Health Technology Network for Children in England (TITCH – Technology Innovation Transforming Child Health), dedicated to the development of technology and digital solutions to improve the health of children and young people and to enable greater independence. He is also the Director of SIIRCH (The South Yorkshire Institute for Innovation and Research in Child Health) designed to support cross-disciplinary collaborative research to improve child health and the lives of children. He has recently led on the development of the National Institute of Children’s Sports and Exercise Medicine (NICSEM). NICSEM is the first dedicated Institute for children’s sport and exercise medicine in the UK and provides access to highly specialised clinical services relating to physical activity and sports in children and young people. NICSEM also supports the development of world class research that will deliver long-term systematic change to benefit the health of the children and young people.
View Paul Dimitri's publications
Dr David Hughes BMedSci, MB ChB, PhD, FRCPath
Consultant Histopathologist and Cancer Lead Clinician
Email: david.hughes47@nhs.net
David’s initial research was the investigation of the role of cytokines in bone metabolism, and through his PhD (The University of Sheffield,1988) he developed an interest in understanding the mechanism of action of bisphosphonates.
He developed this interest during his sabbatical as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, establishing the pro-apoptotic effect of bisphosphonates on osteoclasts. During his Clinical Lectureship at the University of Sheffield, he contributed to the work of the team of Professor Mike Rogers in demonstrating the role of the mevalonate pathway in bisphosphonate action.
Recently, David has worked collaboratively using his skills in tissue interpretation to contribute to a variety of projects such as describing the phenotype of IL-1 receptor antagonist knockout mice and tissue engineering using conditionally-immortalised chondrocyte progenitors. David currently collaborates with Professor Peter Croucher’s group and contributes histology support to the Sheffield Bone Biomedical Research Unit. He is also the reference pathologist for the national VORTEX and Axitinib-STS sarcoma clinical trials.
View David Hughes’ publications
Dr Syazrah Salam
Consultant, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust
Email: s.salam@sheffield.ac.uk
Syazrah graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2004. She is a consultant nephrologist at the Sheffield Kidney Institute and was awarded a Kidney Research UK Clinical Research Training Fellowship during her nephrology training. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Sheffield in 2020. Her PhD focussed on assessing non-invasive tests (bone turnover markers and high-resolution bone imaging) as an alternative to bone biopsy in diagnosing renal osteodystrophy (ROD) in advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD). Her research in CKD mineral bone disorder also includes vascular calcification.
Fracture risk is high in patients with advanced CKD but the pathophysiology is complex and not fully understood. This is Syazrah’s current research focus and she has been awarded the European Calcified Tissue Society Clinical Research Fellowship in 2022 to study bone quality in ROD. She is also a steering committee member of the European Renal Osteodystrophy Initiative (part of the European Renal Association) since 2016. She was awarded the Royal College of Physicians Turner-Warwick Lecture in 2020.