Professor Simon D Taylor-Robinson

Professor Simon Taylor-Robinson joined the Department of Medicine at Imperial College London in 1997, having previously been Research Fellow at the Robert Steiner MRI Unit, Royal Postgraduate Medical School (MD October 1996) and then Senior Registrar in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Hammersmith Hospital.

 In the past ten years, Professor Taylor-Robinson has investigated pathogenic mechanisms in chronic liver disease using a combination of in vivo and in vitro MR spectroscopy, positron emission tomography and microbubble contrast-enhanced ultrasound. He has also maintained a clinical and research interest in hepatic encephalopathy and the effects of the hepatitis C virus on the brain (using novel imaging techniques). He has published widely (more than 100 publications) and in June 1999, Professor Taylor-Robinson was awarded a British Medical Research Council (MRC) Career Establishment programme grant on the basis of his studies. This grant started in December 1999 and aimed to follow the natural history of patients with hepatitis C non-invasively using both magnetic resonance and ultrasound methodologies. A cohort of patients with mild hepatitis, severe hepatitis, and hepatitis C associated-cirrhosis were followed over a 6 year period to assess the progression of fibrosis and other sequelae, such as the development of liver tumours. This research resulted in several high impact factor papers and subsequently generated industrial sponsorship from both Pfizer and Glaxo SmithKline (GSK). He is clinically responsible for patients with liver disease both at Hammersmith Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital in London (Imperial College Healthcare Trust) and has been actively involved in interventional magnetic resonance studies at St Mary’s Hospital, designed to optimise treatment of hepatocellular carcinomas using laser technology. Professor Taylor-Robinson currently holds 2 grants from the MRC (one joint with Newcastle University), and has funding from the United Kingdom Engineering, Physics and Science Research Council (EPSRC) and the Wellcome Trust.

He was awarded the Sir Francis Avery Jones Gold Medal by the British Society of Gastroenterology in 1999 and the Young Investigator Award of the Liver Section of the European Gastroenterology Association in 1997. He was further recognised by the Royal College of Physicians of London in September 2000 when he gave the foundation Linacre Lecture.

 Professor Taylor-Robinson currently leads a multidisciplinary research team and supervises four PhD students and two MD students.