Rate My Professor Benjamin Fisher

Professor Benjamin Fisher is a Professor in Rheumatology in the Department of Inflammation and Ageing at the University of Birmingham. He studied medicine at the United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy’s and St Thomas’s Hospitals in London, obtaining a BSc (Hons) in Immunology in 1996 and his MBBS in 1999. He trained as a Rheumatologist in London with academic studies at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Imperial College London, where he worked in the clinical trials unit and completed an MD(Res) on antibodies to citrullinated alpha enolase peptides in rheumatoid arthritis in 2011. He holds MRCP (2002) and was appointed as a Walport Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College before joining the University of Birmingham as a Senior Clinical Lecturer in 2012. He was appointed Professor of Rheumatology in 2022.

Professor Fisher’s research focuses on clinical trials in inflammatory diseases, particularly Sjögren’s syndrome and inflammatory arthritis. He has led studies on novel agents, including a trial of a CD40-blocking agent that showed positive effects on systemic activity. He is chief investigator for the Optimising Assessments in Sjögren’s Syndrome (OASIS) cohort and deputy clinical director at the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit Birmingham, leading the Inflammation and Advanced Cellular Therapies team. He contributed to the CATALYST trial for COVID-19 therapies and is part of the NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre. His work includes risk factors for autoimmune diseases such as autoantibodies and diet. Key publications include the 2024 Lancet paper on abatacept in individuals at high risk of rheumatoid arthritis and the 2024 Rheumatology guideline on management of adult and juvenile onset Sjögren disease. He participates in national and international collaborations and has presented at major conferences such as the American College of Rheumatology annual congress.