Professor Janet M Lord FMedSci, CBE

Professor Janet Lord

Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
Professor of Immune Cell Biology
Director of the MRC-Versus Arthritis Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 371 3234
Email
j.m.lord@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@Lord_lab
View my research portal
Address
Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
University of Birmingham Research Labs
Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Mindelsohn Way
Birmingham
B15 2WB

Janet Lord is the Director of the MRC-Versus Arthritis Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research and Professor of Immune Cell Biology.

Her research focusses on the dysregulation of immunity in old age, in particular the decline in neutrophil function and how this compromises the response to infection and tissue injury. She aims to understand the mechanism involved and to develop novel therapies to improve immunity in older adults.

Qualifications

  • Professor of Immune Cell Biology
  • Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences 2015
  • PhD Biological Sciences 1983
  • BSc (Hons) Human Biology 1979

Biography

Janet Lord is Professor of Immune Cell Biology at the University of Birmingham. She is Director of the MRC-Versus Arthritis Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research and theme lead for Sarcopaenia and multimorbidty in the NIHR Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre and leads the acute response to injury themes in the NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre and the Scar Free Foundation Centre for Burns Research.

Her primary research focus is on the effect of ageing upon immune function and how this limits the ability of older adults to resolve inflammation occurring in response to infectious challenge or injury. This has led her to research neutrophil function in healthy elders and also after hip fracture and during infections such as pneumonia. She also researches the link between chronic systemic inflammation and physical frailty in old age and has published papers showing that much of the increased systemic inflammation and sarcopaenia associated with ageing can be prevented by high levels of physical activity in adulthood.

Professor Lord has a particular interest in the role played by stress (physical and psychological) and the altered HPA axis in modulating immunity and frailty in old age and following an injury such as hip fracture. She has published several papers showing that a heightened HPA axis (increased cortisol:DHEAS ratio) is associated with poor outcomes after hip fracture.

More recently she has carried out research in to the impact of critical injury on the rate of biological ageing and how ageing processes influence outcomes such as sepsis and scarring after trauma and burn injury. She aims to develop new therapies to improve outcomes after injury.

In 2013 she was awarded the Lord Cohen of Birkenhead medal for her outstanding research in human ageing by the British Society for Research in to Ageing. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015 and was awarded a CBE in the New Years Honours list in 2023.

Teaching

Postgraduate supervision

  • PhD in Immune Ageing
  • PhD in Musculoskeletal Ageing
  • PhD in Trauma Immunology

Research

  • The effect of ageing on immunity
  • Mechanisms underlying musculoskeletal ageing, sarcopaenia and frailty
  • The inflammatory response after major trauma and influence on patient outcomes
  • Factors influencing scarring after burn injury
  • The role of immune ageing in rheumatoid arthritis pathogenesis

Other activities

  • Section editor for the Journal Geroscience.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Quinlan, JI, Dhaliwal, A, Williams, FR, Allen, SL, Choudhary, S, Rowlands, A, Breen, L, Lavery, GG, Lord, JM, Elsharkawy, AM, Armstrong, MJ & Greig, CA 2023, 'Impaired lower limb muscle mass, quality and function in end stage liver disease: A cross‐sectional study', Experimental Physiology, vol. 108, no. 8, 1066-1079. https://doi.org/10.1113/ep091157

Syed, U, Subramanian, A, Wraith, D, Lord, J, McGee, K, Gokhale, K, Nirantharakumar, K & Haroon, S 2023, 'Incidence of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases following COVID-19: a matched cohort study in UK primary care', BMC Medicine, vol. 21, no. 1, 363. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-023-03049-5

West, CE, Karim, M, Falaguera, MJ, Speidel, L, Green, CJ, Logie, L, Schwartzentruber, J, Ochoa, D, Lord, JM, Ferguson, MAJ, Bountra, C, Wilkinson, GF, Vaughan, B, Leach, AR, Dunham, I & Marsden, BD 2023, 'Integrative GWAS and co-localisation analysis suggests novel genes associated with age-related multimorbidity', Scientific Data, vol. 10, no. 1, 655. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02513-4

Freidin, MB, Cheetham, N, Duncan, EL, Steves, CJ, Doores, KJ, Malim, MH, Rossi, N, Lord, JM, Franks, PW, Borsini, A, Granville Smith, I, Falchi, M, Pariante, C & Williams, FMK 2023, 'Long-COVID fatigue is not predicted by pre-pandemic plasma IL-6 levels in mild COVID-19', Inflammation Research, vol. 72, no. 5, pp. 947-953. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00011-023-01722-2

PHOSP-COVID study collaborative group, Evans, RA, Bolton, CE, Brightling, CE, Chalmers, JD, Docherty, AB, Elneima, O, Greenhaff, PL, Gupta, A, Harris, VC, Harrison, EM, Ho, L-P, Horsley, A, Houchen-Wolloff, L, Jolley, CJ, Leavy, OC, Lone, NI, Man, WD-C, Marks, M, Parekh, D, Poinasamy, K, Quint, JK, Raman, B, Richardson, M, Saunders, RM, Sereno, M, Shikotra, A, Singapuri, A, Singh, SJ, Steiner, M, Tan, AL, Wain, LV, Welch, C, Whitney, J, Witham, MD, Lord, J, Greening, NJ & Kamwa, V 2023, 'Prevalence of physical frailty, including risk factors, up to 1 year after hospitalisation for COVID-19 in the UK: a multicentre, longitudinal cohort study', EClinicalMedicine, vol. 57, 101896. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2023.101896

Chen, Y-Y, Patel, KM, Imran, R, Hassouna, T, Amirize, E, Abdulsalam, A, Bishop, J, Slade, A, Ventura, M, Yarrow, J, Lord, JM, Wilson, Y & Moiemen, NS 2023, 'SMOOTH protocol: A pilot randomised prospective intra-patient single-blinded observational study for examining the mechanistic basis of ablative fractional carbon dioxide laser therapy in treating hypertrophic scarring', PLoS ONE, vol. 18, no. 9, e0285230. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0285230

Bentley, C, Hazeldine, J, Bravo, L, Taylor, AE, Gilligan, LC, Shaheen, F, Acharjee, A, Gkoutos, G, Foster, MA, Arlt, W & Lord, JM 2023, 'The ultra-acute steroid response to traumatic injury: a cohort study', European Journal of Endocrinology. https://doi.org/10.1093/ejendo/lvad024

PHOSP-COVID study collaborative group 2022, 'Big data and long COVID', The Lancet Digital Health, vol. 4, no. 7, e477. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2589-7500(22)00113-3

Zemedikun, DT, Lee, H, Nirantharakumar, K, Raza, K, Chandan, JS, Lord, JM & Jackson, TA 2022, 'Comorbidity phenotypes and risk of mortality in patients with osteoarthritis in the UK: a latent class analysis', Arthritis Research & Therapy, vol. 24, no. 1, 231. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13075-022-02909-4

Preprint

Subramanian, A, Nirantharakumar, K, Hughes, S, Myles, P, Williams, T, Gokhale, K, Taverner, T, Chandan, J, Brown, K, Simms-Williams, N, Shah, A, Singh, M, Kidy, F, Okoth, K, Hotham, R, Bashir, N, Cockburn, N, Lee, S, Turner, G, Gkoutos, G, Aiyegbusi, OL, McMullan, C, Denniston, A, Sapey, E, Lord, J, Wraith, D, Leggett, E, Iles, C, Marshall, T, Price, M, Marwaha, S, Davies, EH, Jackson, L, Camaradou, J, Calvert, M & Haroon, S 2022 'Assessment of 115 symptoms for Long COVID (post-COVID-19 condition) and their risk factors in non-hospitalised individuals: a retrospective matched cohort study in UK primary care' Research Square. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1343889/v1

Review article

Ma, Y, Barnes, SP, Chen, Y-Y, Moiemen, NS, Lord, JM & Sardeli, AV 2023, 'Influence of scar age, laser type and laser treatment intervals on adult burn scars: A systematic review and meta-analysis', PLoS ONE, vol. 18, no. 9, e0292097. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0292097

Ma, Y, Barnes, SP, Chen, Y-Y, Moiemen, N, Lord, J & Veiga Sardeli, A 2023, 'Influence of scar age, laser type and laser treatment intervals on paediatric burn scars: A systematic review and meta-analysis', Burns & Trauma. <https://academic.oup.com/burnstrauma>

Horner, E, Lord, J & Hazeldine, J 2023, 'The immune suppressive properties of damage associated molecular patterns in the setting of sterile traumatic injury', Frontiers in immunology, vol. 14, 1239683. https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1239683

Taylor, JA, Greenhaff, PL, Bartlett, DB, Jackson, TA, Duggal, NA & Lord, JM 2022, 'A Multisystem Physiological Perspective of Human Frailty and Its Modulation by Physical Activity', Physiological Reviews. https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00037.2021

Kankam, H, Lee, KC, Veiga Sardeli, A, Dretzke, J, Lord, J & Moiemen, N 2022, 'Acute burn injuries associated with long-term mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis', Burns, vol. 2022, pp. 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.burns.2022.06.009

View all publications in research portal