Dr Tom Payne

School of Medicine and Population Health

NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Neurology

t.w.payne@sheffield.ac.uk

Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)

Full contact details

Dr Tom Payne
School of Medicine and Population Health
Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)
385a Glossop Road
Sheffield
S10 2HQ

Profile

I first joined the University of Sheffield as a medical student in 2008. Following this I completed Academic Foundation Programme Training in South Yorkshire and subsequently commenced a NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship in Neurology in 2017 at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

I completed my PhD thesis titled ‘Mitochondrial dysfunction as a therapeutic target in Parkinson’s disease’ in 2022. This focused on the development of novel imaging biomarkers using ³¹Phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy to investigate brain bioenergetics in vivo and within an early phase clinical trial by completing a Phase II trial investigating Ursodeoxycholic acid in Parkinson’s. I was awarded the prestigious Junior Award by the International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society in 2022 for this work.

Since June 2023 I have been an NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Neurology based in the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience.

Research interests

My main interest is to develop effective tools to mechanistically stratify Parkinson’s disease according to mitochondrial and bioenergetic dysfunction for future precision medicine trials. I also hope to develop more effective tools for the objective quantification of Parkinson’s disease.

I have particular expertise in neuroimaging methods, particular MRI and clinical trial endpoint design having utilised sensor-based quantification of gait in several projects.

I have been involved in several early phase clinical trials. Including an academically led a Phase II trial investigating Ursodeoxycholic acid in Parkinson’s. The results of which contributed to Ursodeoxycholic acid progressing to be one of the treatment arms in a large (£16.8 million) Multi-Arm Multi-Stage Platform trial in Parkinson’s (ACT-PD).

I also have experience using peripheral tissue fibroblasts to assess mitochondrial function in Parkinson’s. I work closely with both Prof Oliver Bandmann and Prof Heather Mortiboys.

Publications

Journal articles

Arena G, Landoulsi Z, Grossmann D, Payne T, Vitali A, Delcambre S, Baron A, Antony P, Boussaad I, Bobbili DR , Sreelatha AAK et al (2024) Polygenic risk scores validated in patient‐derived cells stratify for mitochondrial subtypes of Parkinson's disease. Annals of Neurology, 96(1), 133-149. View this article in WRRO
Payne T, Burgess T, Bradley S, Roscoe S, Sassani M, Dunning MJ, Hernandez D, Scholz S, McNeill A, Taylor R , Su L et al (2023) Multimodal assessment of mitochondrial function in Parkinson's disease. Brain, 147(1), 267-280. View this article in WRRO
Payne T, Appleby M, Buckley E, van Gelder LMA, Mullish BH, Sassani M, Dunning MJ, Hernandez D, Scholz SW, McNeill A , Libri V et al (2023) A double‐blind, randomized, placebo‐controlled trial of ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) in Parkinson's disease. Movement Disorders, 38(8), 1493-1502. View this article in WRRO
Toh C, Keslake A, Payne T, Onwuegbuzie A, Harding J, Baster K, Hoggard N, Shaw PJ, Wilkinson ID & Jenkins TM (2023) Analysis of brain and spinal MRI measures in a common domain to investigate directional neurodegeneration in motor neuron disease. Journal of Neurology, 270(3), 1682-1690. View this article in WRRO
Cole J, Choudry S, Kular S, Payne T, Akili S, Callaby H, Gordon NC, Ankcorn M, Martin A, Hobson E & Tunbridge AJ (2023) Monkeypox encephalitis with transverse myelitis in a female patient. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 23(3), e115-e120. View this article in WRRO
Payne T, Burgess T, Sassani M, Bradley S, Roscoe S, Reed E, Wilkinson ID, Mortiboys H, Jenkins TM & Bandmann O (2022) Using 31-phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P-MRS) to identify Parkinson’s Disease subgroups with bioenergetic dysfunction. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 93(9), e2.2-e2.2.
Payne T, Sassani M, Buckley E, Moll S, Anton A, Appleby M, Maru S, Taylor R, McNeill A, Hoggard N , Mazza C et al (2020) Ursodeoxycholic acid as a novel disease-modifying treatment for Parkinson’s disease: protocol for a two-centre, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, The 'UP' study. BMJ Open, 10(8). View this article in WRRO
Carling PJ, Mortiboys H, Green C, Mihaylov S, Sandor C, Schwartzentruber A, Taylor R, Wei W, Hastings C, Wong S , Lo C et al (2020) Deep phenotyping of peripheral tissue facilitates mechanistic disease stratification in sporadic Parkinson’s disease. Progress in Neurobiology, 187. View this article in WRRO
Davis RL, Wong SL, Carling PJ, Payne T, Sue CM & Bandmann O (2020) Serum FGF-21, GDF-15, and blood mtDNA copy number are not biomarkers of Parkinson disease. Neurology Clinical Practice, 10(1), 40-46.
Davis RL, Wong SL, Carling PJ, Payne T, Sue CM & Bandmann O (2019) 136 Mitochondrial biomarkers in parkinson’s disease. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, 90(12), e38.2-e38.
Mortiboys H, MacDonald R, Payne T, Sassani M, Jenkins T & Bandmann O (2018) Translational approaches to restoring mitochondrial function in Parkinson's disease. FEBS Letters, 592(5), 776-792. View this article in WRRO
Keatinge M, Bui H, Menke A, Chen Y-C, Sokol AM, Bai Q, Ellett F, Da Costa M, Burke D, Gegg M , Trollope L et al (2015) Glucocerebrosidase 1 deficient Danio rerio mirror key pathological aspects of human Gaucher disease and provide evidence of early microglial activation preceding alpha-synuclein-independent neuronal cell death. Human Molecular Genetics, 24(23), 6640-6652. View this article in WRRO

Conference proceedings papers

Payne T, Keatinge M, Costa MD & Bandmann O (2015) MPP+ IN A ZEBRAFISH MODEL OF GLUCOCEREBROSIDASE 1 DEFICIENCY. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry, Vol. 86(11) (pp e4.93-e4)

Teaching interests: I am currently co-supervising 1 PhD student and 1 MSc student project. I have previously supervised 6 MSc student projects. I teach regularly across several undergraduate courses at the University of Sheffield including Medicine. I led a module on Neuroinflammation for the MSc in Clinical Neurology for 3 years and continue to regularly teach and supervise MSc student projects as part of this course.

Professional activities and memberships: I am part of Participation Steering Group Committee for Parkinson’s UK, which seeks to improve ongoing engagement with research, recently developing the Staying Connected Toolkit which was developed with both REC and the HRA (https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/research/staying-connected-your-participants).

Current Projects

The first longitudinal study of peripheral tissue fibroblasts in Parkinson’s, assessing whether mechanistic cellular phenotypes remain stable or progress in line with disease severity.
Combined PET-MRI and 31Phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging to comprehensively investigate brain bioenergetics in Parkinson’s disease.
Identifying novel risk factors for Parkinson’s to develop effective predictive models of Parkinson’s disease using large open-source datasets and machine learning methods.
Investigating how dopaminergic medication affects gait performance in both the ‘ON’ and ‘OFF’ medication states in clinic using sensor-based gait analysis to inform future clinical trial endpoint design
Investigating in vivo mitochondrial dysfunction in Wilson’s disease using 31Phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy
NIHR Team Science project, investigating the intersection between polypharmacy, mobility and mental health