Professor Matthew Brown

Biography

Professor Matthew Brown, an internationally renowned clinician-scientist, has been appointed Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Guy’s and St Thomas’ Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) and Professor of Medicine within the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine. He joined King’s as Professor of Medicine and to lead the BRC, which aims to transform scientific breakthroughs into life-saving treatments for patients. Professor Brown has taken up the new position from his previous role as Director of Genomics and Distinguished Professor, at the Queensland University of Technology.

Professor Brown trained as a clinician-scientist and a rheumatologist, including a period of post-graduate study at the University of Oxford. He has made contributions to the development of gene-mapping approaches in human diseases and genome-wide association study methodology, leading to the discovery of thousands of genetic variants, with a particular interest in ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis. In the genetics of rare human diseases, he has identified genes responsible for monogenic forms of arthritis, ectopic bone development, and skeletal dysplasias. He has also led efforts in Australia to translate research sequencing capability into precision medicine programs for cancer patients. He was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 2013, and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences in 2015.

His team at King's College London are focussing on the immunogenetics of ankylosing spondylitis, and on developing novel therapies informed by these studies. They research the role of the microbiome in the disease, and its potential as a therapeutic target. They are also studying novel biomarkers and their utility for diagnosis and prognosis prediction in axial spondyloarthritis (non-radiographic axial spondyloarthritis and ankylosing spondylitis). In addition to research in ankylosing spondylitis, Professor Brown is coordinating national collaborative programs in research in polygenic risk scores as clinical tools.