Mr Antonio Belli MD, FRCS, FRCS (SN)

Image of Tony Belli

Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
Professor of Trauma Neurosurgery

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0) 121 414 4497
Telephone (2)
PA - Nadene Bryan 0121 414 3713
Fax
+44 (0) 121 414 8867
Email
a.belli@bham.ac.uk
Secondary Email
n.m.bryan@bham.ac.uk
Address
Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
College of Medical and Dental Sciences
IBR West Building
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Mr Belli graduated from Tor Vergata University in Rome with a degree in Medicine and Surgery. He completed a doctoral degree (MD) on neurobiochemistry of brain ischaemia and reperfusion at Tor Vergata University and then moved to the UK in 1994.

He trained as a neurosurgeon at King’s College Hospital, Atkinson Morley’s Hospital, The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Great Ormond Street Hospital, The Royal Free Hospital and Charing Cross Hospital. Between 2001 and 2003 he carried out a research fellowship in neuromonitoring at the Institute of Neurology in London.

He is on the editorial board several neurology journals and is an advisor to NICE and the Care Quality Commission.

Antonio Belli is Director of the NIHR SRMRC. Find out more about the work of the research centre on the SRMRC website.

Qualifications

  • 2004, Fellowship in Surgical Neurology (FRCS SN)
  • 1997, Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Glasgow (FRCS)
  • 1992, MD (Reactive Oxygen Species damage in brain ischaemia and reperfusion) – Department of Neurosciences, University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’
  • 1990, Degree of Doctor of Medicine and Surgery (summa cum laude) – University of Rome ‘Tor Vergata’

Biography

Mr Belli is a Professor of Trauma Neurosurgery and Director of the Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre (SRMCR) based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (http://www.srmrc.nihr.ac.uk/). The SRMRC is a leading centre for trauma research and was founded in 2011 with £20M grant from NIHR, MoD, the University of Birmingham and University Hospitals Birmingham. He heads the neurotrauma research theme, which carries out translational research on traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury. He is also a practising neurosurgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital where he leads the Neurotrauma service comprised of a formidable team of doctors, nurses and therapists.

Teaching

  • Tony has set up and leads the new MSc course in Trauma Sciences at the University of Birmingham. This is the first on-site MSc course in trauma in the UK and one of just a handful available in this field worldwide. In this programme he also leads the Neurotrauma module.
  • Tony also continues to be involved in the regular teaching of medical, BMedSc and Sports and Excercise Science students. He has contributed to teaching at other institutions by invitation; for example, the Nursing Degree at City University, the Neurotrauma Course at Royal College of Surgeons (where I am a regular faculty member) and MSc courses at Queen Mary University London.

Postgraduate supervision

Tony supervises a number of doctoral research students. If you are interested in studying with Tony please contact him on the contact details above, or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email: dr@contacts.bham.ac.uk or call +44 (0)121 414 5005.

For a full list of available Doctoral Research opportunities, please visit our Doctoral Research programme listings.

Research

Mr Belli’s research interest is in neurobiochemistry and neuromonitoring of acute brain injury. A particular focus is brain metabolism following mild and severe traumatic brain injury and how this relates to the long-term outcome and the risk of early neurogenerative conditions. Many of his current studies involve cross-disciplinary collaborations with engineering, chemistry, computing science and IT.

Working with cerebral microdialysis, another area of interest is early markers of tissue damage for the prevention of secondary injury after trauma and subarachnoid haemorrhage, patient stratification and drug discovery.

He is the principal or chief investigator of several acute brain injury studies, including international multicentre trials.

Other activities

  • Director of NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre (Trauma Research)
  • Theme Lead of the NIHR Healthcare Technology Cooperative on Trauma Management
  • Module Editor for Neurosurgery for eLearning for Health Care (Royal College of Surgeons of England and Department of Health)
  • Member of the Leadership Committee for Trauma and Critical Care of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies
  • Independent Member of the Expert Panel on Concussion and Head Injury of the Football Association and Rugby Football Union
  • Advisor on concussion to the England Cricket Board, British Basketball and GB Rowing
  • Trustee of Headway (Brain Injury charity) and of the Midlands Neuroscience Training and Research Fund
  • Member of the Trauma Group of the British Society of Neurological Surgeons
  • External Reviewer for the French National Research Agency
  • Ad hoc reviewer for the EPSRC, MRC, NIHR and Wellcome Trust

Publications

Amorini AM, Lazzarino G, Di Pietro V, Signoretti S, Lazzarino G, Belli A and Tavazzi B (2016) Severity of experimental traumatic brain injury modulates changes in concentrations of cerebral free amino acids. J Cell Mol Med [Epub ahead of print]

Mahmood A, Roberts I, Shakur H, Harris T and Belli A (2016) Does tranexamic acid improve outcomes in traumatic brain injury? BMJ 354:i4814

Hutchinson PJ, Kolias AG, Timofeev IS, Corteen EA, Czosnyka M, Timothy J, Anderson I, Bulters DO, Belli A, Eynon CA, Wadley J, Mendelow AD, Mitchell PM, Wilson MH, Critchley G, Sahuquillo J, Unterberg A, Servadei F, Teasdale GM, Pickard JD, Menon DK, Murray GD, Kirkpatrick PJ; RESCUEicp Trial Collaborators (2016) Trial of Decompressive Craniectomy for Traumatic Intracranial Hypertension. N Engl J Med 375(12):1119-30

Roberts SA, Toman E, Belli A and Midwinter (2016) Decompressive craniectomy and cranioplasty: experience and outcomes in deployed UK military personnel. Br J Neurosurg 30(5):529-35

Clancy M, Belli A, Davies D, Lucas SJ, Su Z and Dehghani H (2016) Improving the quantitative accuracy of cerebral oxygen saturation in monitoring the injured brain using atlas based Near Infrared Spectroscopy models. J Biophotonics 9(8):812-26

Amorini AM, Lazzarino G, Di Pietro V, Signoretti S, Lazzarino G, Belli A and Tavazzi B (2016) Metabolic, enzymatic and gene involvement in cerebral glucose dysmetabolism after traumatic brain injury. Biochim Biophys Acta 1862(4):679-87

Barbey AK, Belli A, Logan A, Rubin R, Zamroziewicz M and Operskalski JT (2015) Network topology and dynamics in traumatic brain injury. Curr Opin Behav Sci 4:92-102

Hazeldine J, Lord JM and Belli A (2015) Traumatic Brain Injury and Peripheral Immune Suppression: Primer and Prospectus. Front Neurol 6:235

Tsermoulas G, Shah O, Wijesinghe HE, Silva AH, Ramalingam SK and Belli A (2016) Surgery for Acute Subdural Hematoma: Replace or Remove the Bone Flap? World Neurosurg 88:569-75

Turner CL, Budohoski K, Smith C, Hutchinson PJ, Kirkpatrick PJ, Murray GD; STASH collaborators (2015) Elevated Baseline C-Reactive Protein as a Predictor of Outcome After Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage: Data From the Simvastatin in Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage (STASH) Trial. Neurosurgery 77(5):786-92

Hutchinson PJ, Jalloh I, Helmy A, Carpenter KL, Rostami E, Bellander BM, Boutelle MG, Chen JW, Claassen J, Dahyot-Fizelier C, Enblad P, Gallagher CN, Helbok R, Hillered L, Le Roux PD, Magnoni S, Mangat HS, Menon DK, Nordström CH, O'Phelan KH, Oddo M, Perez Barcena J, Robertson C, Ronne-Engström E, Sahuquillo J, Smith M, Stocchetti N, Belli A, Carpenter TA, Coles JP, Czosnyka M, Dizdar N, Goodman JC, Gupta AK, Nielsen TH, Marklund N, Montcriol A, O'Connell MT, Poca MA, Sarrafzadeh A, Shannon RJ, Skjøth-Rasmussen J, Smielewski P, Stover JF, Timofeev I, Vespa P, Zavala E and Ungerstedt U (2015) Consensus statement from the 2014 International Microdialysis Forum. Intensive Care Med 41(9):1517-28

Di Pietro V, Amorini AM, Lazzarino G, Yakoub KM, D'Urso S, Lazzarino G and Belli A (2015) S100B and Glial Fibrillary Acidic Protein as Indexes to Monitor Damage Severity in an In Vitro Model of Traumatic Brain Injury. Neurochem Res 40(5):991-9

Davies DJ, Su Z, Clancy MT, Lucas SJ, Dehghani H, Logan A and Belli A (2015) Near-Infrared Spectroscopy in the Monitoring of Adult Traumatic Brain Injury: A Review. J Neurotrauma 32(13):933-41

Maas AI, Menon DK, Steyerberg EW, Citerio G, Lecky F, Manley GT, Hill S, Legrand V and Sorgner A; CENTER-TBI Participants and Investigators (2015) Collaborative European NeuroTrauma Effectiveness Research in Traumatic Brain Injury (CENTER-TBI): a prospective longitudinal observational study. Neurosurgery 76(1):67-80

Lord JM, Midwinter MJ, Chen YF, Belli A, Brohi K, Kovacs EJ, Koenderman L, Kubes P and Lilford RJ (2014) The systemic immune response to trauma: an overview of pathophysiology and treatment. Lancet 384(9952):1455-65

El Ghoul W, Harrisson S and Belli A. (2014) Autologous cranioplasty following decompressive craniectomy in the trauma setting. Br J Neurosurg 6:1-6 [Epub ahead of print]

Kirkpatrick PJ, Turner CL, Smith C, Hutchinson PJ and Murray GD; STASH Collaborators (2014) Simvastatin in aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (STASH): a multicentre randomised phase 3 trial. Lancet Neurol 13(7):666-75

Stover JF, Belli A, Boret H, Bulters D, Sahuquillo J, Schmutzhard E, Zavala E, Ungerstedt U, Schinzel R and Tegtmeier F; NOSTRA Investigators (2014) Nitric oxide synthase inhibition with the antipterin VAS203 improves outcome in moderate and severe traumatic brain injury: a placebo-controlled randomized Phase IIa trial (NOSTRA). J Neurotrauma 31(19):1599-606

Amorini AM, Nociti V, Petzold A, Gasperin C, Quartuccio E, Lazzarino G, Di Pietro V, Belli A, Signoretti S, Vagnozzi R, Lazzarino G and Tavazzi B (2014) Serum lactate as a novel potential biomarker in multiple sclerosis. Biochim Biophys Acta 1842(7):1137-43

Bulstrode H, Nicoll JA, Hudson G, Chinnery PF, Di Pietro V and Belli A (2014) Mitochondrial DNA and traumatic brain injury. Ann Neurol 75(2):186-95

Di Pietro V, Amorini AM, Tavazzi B, Vagnozzi R, Logan A, Lazzarino G, Signoretti S, Lazzarino G and Belli A (2014) The molecular mechanisms affecting N-acetylaspartate homeostasis following experimental graded traumatic brain injury. Mol Med 20:147-57

Di Pietro V, Lazzarino G, Amorini AM, Tavazzi B, D'Urso S, Longo S, Vagnozzi R, Signoretti S, Clementi E, Giardina B, Lazzarino G and Belli A (2014) Neuroglobin expression and oxidant/antioxidant balance after graded traumatic brain injury in the rat. Free Radic Biol Med 69:258-64

Kolias AG, Bulters DO, Cowie CJ, Wilson MH, Afshari FT, Helmy A, Broughton E, Joannides AJ, Zebian B, Harrisson SE, Hill CS, Ahmed AI, Barone DG, Thakur B, McMahon CJ, Adlam DM, Bentley RP, Tolias CM, Mitchell PM, Whitfield PC, Critchley GR, Belli A, Brennan PM and Hutchinson PJ; British Neurosurgical Trainee Research Collaborative; British Neurotrauma Group; UKCRR Collaborative Group (2014) Proposal for establishment of the UK Cranial Reconstruction Registry (UKCRR). Br J Neurosurg 28(3):310-4

Hall S, Kumaria A and Belli A (2014) The role of vagus nerve overactivity in the increased incidence of pneumonia following traumatic brain injury. Br J Neurosurg 28(2):181-6