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Staff Profile

Dr Salman Razvi

Clinical Senior Lecturer/Consultant

  • Telephone: 0191 241 8838
  • Address: Translational and Clinical Research Institute
    Newcastle University
    Centre for Life
    Central Parkway
    Newcastle upon Tyne
    NE1 3BZ
Background

My research focuses on ameliorating morbidity and mortality in people with thyroid diseases. As a clinically trained investigator, I am pursuing research questions on several different levels, from examining different treatments of thyroid disease and their effects on cardiovascular risk factors and diseases to investigating long-term natural history of thyroid disease in a population. Despite the day-to-day pressures I have been successful in developing and maintain an active research career including a number of nationally funded projects. The first was the British Thyroid Foundation funded study of assessing long-term outcomes in the survivors of the original Whickham cohort, the first community thyroid disease prevalence study. The second grant was the NIHR-RfPB funded trial (SORTED) to investigate lower dose levothyroxine in older hypothyroid individuals in relation to quality of life and cardiovascular risk factors. In addition, I obtained data from the General Practitioner Research Database (CPRD) via the MRC license to analyse outcomes of subclinical hypothyroidism, which provided real life data on the effects of treatment on cardiovascular events. These results were instrumental, in part, to the recommendations formulated by the European Thyroid Association (which I was a co-author on) that the age of an individual should be considered when deliberating treatment of subclinical hypothyroidism. Also, in association with colleagues from the British Thyroid Association, I studied the iodine status of schoolgirls, which discovered that there was significant iodine deficiency in the UK, and led to a review by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition.

In 2013, I successfully secured an NIHR Career Development Fellowship (CDF) award. The CDF had a significant and measurable impact on the quality and quantity of my research output. This was due to the shift in my focus from purely NHS work to being a clinical academic. As a consequence, my H index has increased to 32. Furthermore, my contribution to the peer review process has also seen me being ranked amongst the top reviewers (ranked at the 99th percentile on Publons).


My publications (currently >90, of which >60 are original research articles) focus mainly on the cardiovascular effects of thyroid hormones. I have edited a book (Thyroid and Heart, 2ndedition, Springer) and authored several book chapters (including two in the iconic textbook Werner & Ingbar’s The Thyroid 11th edition). I have been invited to give lectures at several international meetings including the American Thyroid Association, the European Thyroid Association and the National Institutes of Health. I have also been involved in training the next generation of researchers: supervised a clinical fellow who has recently submitted his PhD thesis and three students successfully through their Master’s degree. I regularly review grant applications for NIHR and MRC. In addition, I have been an examiner of PhD candidates overseas.

I continue to foster global collaborations with thyroid researchers as part of the Thyroid Studies Collaboration, which has led to several high impact publications relating thyroid dysfunction with important clinical outcomes such as cardiovascular events and mortality.


In addition, I also work with patient-led charities to help improve patients’ understanding of their condition. I work closely with the British Thyroid Foundation as their medical advisor. I am also involved in supporting research activity and delivery at a local and regional level in my role as R&D Director at Gateshead Health NHS Trust and also the Lead for Metabolic and Endocrine Research in the Local Clinical Research Network. I sit on the Executive committee of the British Thyroid Association, a professional organisation promoting research and interest in thyroidology. I am the Associate editor for Frontiers in Endocrinology and form the editorial panel of the journals Thyroid and Journal of Endocrinological Investigations.

Teaching
I supervise students at various stages of their careers including undergraduates, MSc and PhD.
Publications