Dr Dhruv Parekh MBBS (Hons), PhD, MRCP (UK), FFICM

Dhruv Parekh

Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
Associate Professor in Critical Care and Respiratory Medicine
Managing Director of NIHR Clinical Research Facility Birmingham (adults CRF)

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0) 121 371 7887
Email
d.parekh@bham.ac.uk
Twitter
@drdhruvparekh
View my research portal
Address
Institute of Inflammation and Ageing
College of Medical and Dental Sciences
Centre for Translational and Inflammatory Research
1st Floor, New Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Mindelsohn Way
Birmingham, B15 2WB

Dr Dhruv Parekh is an Associate Professor in Critical Care and Respiratory Medicine at the University of Birmingham, Consultant in Intensive Care and Respiratory at the University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. He is Deputy Theme lead for Acute Care Research and Programme Director of the Birmingham NIHR/Wellcome Clinical Research Facility.  His research interests are developing novel therapies in ARDS, lung fibrosis, perioperative inflammation, sepsis and critical care.

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1508-8362

Qualifications

  • FFICM (Fellowship of the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine) 2017
  • PhD (Health Sciences), University of Warwick, 2016
  • MRCP (UK), Royal College of Physicians, 2007
  • MBBS (Hons), St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London School of Medicine, 2003
  • BMedSci (Hons), St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London School of Medicine, 2002

Biography

Dhruv graduated from Bart’s and the London Medical School gaining a 1st class honours intercalated bachelor in medical sciences, winning numerous prizes and awards during his undergraduate training. He completed clinical training in London and higher specialist clinical training in Intensive Care Medicine, Respiratory and Internal Medicine in the West Midlands.

Dhruv was awarded a highly competitive MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship and his PhD investigated if vitamin D deficiency is a mechanistic driver of ARDS, which was completed in collaboration with the Universities of Birmingham and Warwick and the West Midlands ARDS network. He was a Clinical Lecturer in Respiratory Medicine at the University and was founding member of the Birmingham Acute Care Research Group. He was awarded a West Midlands NIHR CRN Career Development Fellowship (Research Scholar).

He is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Birmingham and Consultant in Critical Care and Respiratory Medicine at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust. As Programme Director of the Birmingham NIHR/Wellcome Clinical Research Facility and Deputy Theme Lead of the cross-cutting Acute Care Research Collaborative within the Birmingham Health Partnership he oversees a breadth of academic and industry led research.

His own programme of research from discovery science to clinical trials is based principally around improving the care and outcomes of acute and critically ill patients admitted to hospital. Dhruv has a keen interest in improving inequity in and access to research studies and is now with his leadership roles passionate about reducing health disparities by ensuring a cohesive cross-sector approach to research, so that every patient regardless of background, location, diversity, language or disability has equal access to innovation. He has recently been accepted onto the highly competitive Academy of Medical Sciences Future Leaders in Innovation and Research Programme Cohort 3.

He is the co-lead for post-graduate research for the institute and Clinical Academic Training Lead for Acute Care.

Teaching

Teaching Programmes

Postgraduate supervision

Dhruv is interested in supervising doctoral research students who are interested in research in the field of respiratory, peri-operative medicine and critical care.

If you are interesting in studying any of these subject areas please contact Dr Dhruv Parekh directly, or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email mds-gradschool@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

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

Research

Dhruv’s programme of research is based principally around improving the care and outcomes of acute and critically ill patients admitted to hospital. To date this has focused on areas of sepsis and acute lung inflammation, and persistent inflammation post-acute injury, in particular innate immunity, macrophage biology and vitamin D in acute illness. His clinical experience allows him to bridge the gap and crosscut from acute and respiratory medicine, perioperative care, trauma to intensive care medicine with a central translational theme of acute inflammation and its resolution.

He also has an interest in the acute effect of vaping on lung health as well as growing area of work in mechanisms and treatment of lung fibrosis. His on-going research activity spans the breadth of discovery science, translation to phase 2 studies and design and delivery of large clinical and cost effectiveness trials in acute, respiratory, and critical care as well as big data, prognostic scoring and risk modelling: this includes funding from NIHR, MRC and collaboration with industry.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Gallier, S, Atkin, C, Reddy-Kolanu, V, Parekh, D, Zou, X, Evison, F, Ball, S & Sapey, E 2022, 'Applying a COVID virtual ward model, assessing patient outcomes and staff workload', Acute Medicine, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 266-275. https://doi.org/10.52964/AMJA.0876

Mahida, RY, Price, J, Lugg, ST, Li, H, Parekh, D, Scott, A, Harrison, P, Matthay, MA & Thickett, DR 2022, 'CD14-positive extracellular vesicles in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid as a new biomarker of acute respiratory distress syndrome', American journal of physiology. Lung cellular and molecular physiology, vol. 322, no. 4, pp. L617-L624. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajplung.00052.2022

Chotalia, M, Ali, M, Alderman, JE, Patel, JM, Parekh, D & Bangash, MN 2022, 'Cardiovascular subphenotypes in patients with COVID-19 pneumonitis whose lungs are mechanically ventilated: a single-centre retrospective observational study', Anaesthesia, vol. 77, no. 7, pp. 763-771. https://doi.org/10.1111/anae.15700

Adderley, N, Taverner, T, Price, M, Sainsbury, C, Greenwood, D, Chandan, J, Takwoingi, Y, Haniffa, R, Hosier , I, Welch, C, Parekh, D, Gallier, S, Gokhale, K, Denniston, A, Sapey, E & Nirantharakumar, K 2022, 'Development and external validation of prognostic models for COVID-19 to support risk stratification in secondary care', BMJ open, vol. 12, no. 1, e049506. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-049506

Belchamber, KBR, Thein, OS, Hazeldine, J, Grudzinska, FS, Faniyi, A, Hughes, M, Jasper, A, Yip, KP, Crowley, LE, Lugg, ST, Sapey, E, Parekh, D, Thickett, DR & Scott, A 2022, 'Dysregulated neutrophil phenotype and function in hospitalised non-ICU COVID-19 pneumonia', Cells, vol. 11, no. 18, 2901. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11182901

Dawson, C, Nankivell, P, Pracy, JP, Capewell, R, Wood, M, Weblin, J, Parekh, D, Patel, J, Skoretz, SA & Sharma, N 2022, 'Functional Laryngeal Assessment in Patients with Tracheostomy Following COVID-19 a Prospective Cohort Study', Dysphagia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00455-022-10496-4

Bangash, MN, Hodson, J, Evison, F, Patel, JM, Johnston, AM, Gallier, S, Sapey, E & Parekh, D 2022, 'Impact of ethnicity on the accuracy of measurements of oxygen saturations: A retrospective observational cohort study', EClinicalMedicine, vol. 48, 101428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2022.101428

Chotalia, M, Topiwala, U, Iqbal, A, Parekh, D, Isaac, JL, Perera, MTPR & Arshad, MA 2022, 'Incidence of Gastrointestinal Bleeding After Transesophageal Echocardiography Use in Orthotopic Liver Transplantation', Transplant international, vol. 35, 10753. https://doi.org/10.3389/ti.2022.10753

CATALYST investigators, Fisher, B, Veenith, T, Slade, D, Gaskell, C, Rowland, M, Whitehouse, T, Scriven, J, Parekh, D, Balasubramaniam, M, Cooke, G, Morley, N, Gabriel, Z, Wise, M, Porter, J, McShane, H, Ho, L-P, Newsome, P, Rowe, A, Sharpe, R, Thickett, D, Bion, J, Gates, S, Richards, D, Kearns, P & Mussai, F 2022, 'Namilumab or infliximab compared with standard of care in hospitalised patients with COVID-19 (CATALYST): a randomised, multicentre, multi-arm, multistage, open-label, adaptive, phase 2, proof-of-concept trial', The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 255-266. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(21)00460-4, https://doi.org/10.1016/s2213-2600(21)00460-4

Lugg, ST, Mackay, WR, Faniyi, AA, Faustini, SE, Webster, C, Duffy, JE, Hewison, M, Shields, AM, Parekh, D, Richter, AG, Scott, A & Thickett, DR 2022, 'Vitamin D status: a U-shaped relationship for SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity in UK healthcare workers', BMJ Open Respiratory Research, vol. 9, no. 1, e001258. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjresp-2022-001258

Mahida, RY, Scott, A, Parekh, D, Lugg, ST, Hardy, RS, Lavery, GG, Matthay, MA, Naidu, B, Perkins, GD & Thickett, DR 2021, 'Acute respiratory distress syndrome is associated with impaired alveolar macrophage efferocytosis', The European respiratory journal, vol. 58, no. 3, 2100829. https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.00829-2021

Mahida, RY, Scott, A, Parekh, D, Lugg, ST, Belchamber, KBR, Hardy, RS, Matthay, MA, Naidu, B & Thickett, DR 2021, 'Assessment of Alveolar Macrophage Dysfunction Using an in vitro Model of Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome', Frontiers in Medicine, vol. 8, 737859. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.737859

Faqihi, BM, Trethewey, S, Morlet, J, Parekh, D & Turner, A 2021, 'Bilevel positive airway pressure ventilation for non-COPD acute hypercapnic respiratory failure patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis', Annals of Thoracic Medicine, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 306-322. https://doi.org/10.4103/atm.atm_683_20

Preprint

Belchamber, K, Thein, O, Hazeldine, J, Grudzinska, F, Hughes, M, Jasper, A, Yip, KP, Sapey, E, Parekh, D, Thickett, D & Scott, A 2021 'Altered neutrophil phenotype and function in non-ICU hospitalised COVID-19 patients correlated with disease severity' medRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.06.08.21258535

Veenith, T, Fisher, BA, Slade, D, Rowe, A, Sharpe, R, Thickett, DR, Whitehouse, T, Rowland, M, Scriven, J, Parekh, D, Bowden, SJ, Savage, JS, Richards, D, Bion, J, Kearns, P & Gates, S 2021 'CATALYST trial protocol: a multicentre, open-label, phase II, multi-arm trial for an early and accelerated evaluation of the potential treatments for COVID-19 in hospitalised adults' medRxiv, pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.10.21251478

View all publications in research portal