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.

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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


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 Nicola Peel DM, FRCP

Consultant Physician and Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer in Metabolic Bone Medicine

Email: nicola.peel1@nhs.net

Nicola is an NHS consultant in Metabolic Bone Medicine and Honorary Senior Lecturer and now works part-time. She was Clinical Lead for the Sheffield Metabolic Bone service between 2002 and 2019. She ensured that the clinical service integrated closely with the Academic Unit thus enabling the early implementation of innovative techniques into clinical practice. This included the use of biochemical markers of bone turnover to monitor osteoporosis therapy in primary and secondary care and the introduction of Vertebral Fracture Assessment scanning into the fracture risk assessment pathway.

View Nicola Peel’s 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.

View Syazrah Salam's publications