Medical Team
Professor Alan Lobo Lead, Sheffield IBD Centre
Professor Alan Lobo qualified from Guy’s Hospital, London in 1984 and undertook postgraduate training in London, Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds and Bristol before being appointed as Consultant Gastroenterologist and Lead for the IBD service in Sheffield in 1994. He has wide experience across all aspects of IBD including in young people and receives many referrals from other centres for further opinions in complex situations. He was a lead author of British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) guidelines for IBD in 2004. He chaired the NICE Guideline Development Group for ulcerative colitis and was a member of the equivalent group for Crohn’s disease as well as contributing to the subsequent NICE quality standards in IBD. He has been a member of the BSG section committee for IBD on two occasions and an elected member of the BSG Council. Under his lead, the Department won a national Shire prize for clinical excellence as well as being shortlisted in the BMJ Awards in 2014. Research interests have included clinical studies as well as basic scientific assessments of the immune response and genetic susceptibility in IBD. Current research includes how antibodies are targeted against infliximab, proteomic assessment of the bowel mucosa and decision making for people with IBD – for which he holds competitively awarded grants from the NIHR and Crohn’s and Colitis UK. He is the chief investigator for the AWARE-IBD study, based in Sheffield and funded by The Health Foundation – one of 4 awards from 361 applicants. He holds an honorary chair with the University of Sheffield.
Dr Melissa HaleConsultant Gastroenterologist
Dr Melissa Hale has been a consultant gastroenterologist in the IBD team since 2016. She qualified in 2006 from the University of Sheffield and was subsequently appointed as a clinical research fellow under the supervision of Professor Mark McAlindon in 2013. This culminated in an MD from the University of Sheffield in 2016 for her work on upper gastrointestinal capsule endoscopy, for which she won a British Society of Gastroenterology Endoscopy research award.
As a consultant, she has led many parts of our IBD service development programme. She maintains an interest in novel methods of capsule endoscopy and IBD and currently provides capsule endoscopy services for the award winning centre at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, speaking at national capsule endoscopy meetings and teaching on a number of training courses. Her current research interests include the utility of capsule endoscopy and biomarkers for the diagnosis and management of IBD.
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Dr Alenka BrooksConsultant Gastroenterologist
Dr Alenka Brooks graduated from Sheffield University in 2001 and is a Consultant Gastroenterologist at STHFT. Alenka has a specialist interest in IBD, in particular pharmacology and the young people with particular interest in transition. Alenka is undertaking a PhD, funded by Crohn’s and Colitis UK and is investigating the illness perceptions of young people living with IBD whist transitioning from child to adult services.
Alenka has undertaken a Leadership & Quality Improvement Fellowship where she trained as a Microsystem Coach, an executive coach and conceived a regional network; Sheffield Women in Healthcare and Medicine (SWiM). In recognition of this transformational work, Alenka was awarded the Personal, Fair & Diverse Champion Individual Award by NHS Employers in 2014. Alenka is a former chair of the Trainees Section of the British Society of Gastroenterology and in recognition of contributions to the Society she was awarded the BSG President's Medal in 2014 and in 2015 was named BSG Young Gastroenterologist of the Year; Emerging Leader.
Dr Joshua Chew Consultant Gastroenterologist
Dr Joshua Chew has been a Consultant Gastroenterologist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust since 2017. He graduated with honours from the University of Sheffield in 2003 and trained in Sheffield, Manchester, London and Newcastle before returning to Sheffield. He was appointed as an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow in Gastroenterology at the University of Manchester before receiving a Wellcome Trust funded PhD studentship and then an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship at the Centre for Molecular Medicine, University College London. His research interests lie in studying the dysfunctional molecular mechanisms in macrophages of the innate immune system and its role in IBD.
Professor Mark McAlindonConsultant Gastroenterologist
Professor Mark McAlindon was trained in IBD in Nottingham where he was a British Digestive Foundation Research Training Fellow investigating molecular mechanisms of inflammation and potential novel therapies for which he was awarded an MD. He has been a consultant in Sheffield and member of the IBD service since 1998 where he has also been involved in developing nutrition services and non-invasive methods of gastrointestinal investigation using capsule endoscopy. This forms a central part of the award winning Sheffield Small Bowel Endoscopy Service (Movetis Magic Award, 2011; Health Service Journal Innovation Award, 2012; British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG), Patient Safety Hall of Fame award, 2015). He is currently a member of the BSG Endoscopy Committee, leads the BSG Quality Improvement (QI) in small bowel endoscopy programme, is a member of the European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy programme and has acted on an advisory panel for the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence. He won the prestigious British Society of Gastroenterology Hopkins Endoscopy Prize in 2017.
Professor Reena SidhuConsultant Gastroenterologist
Professor Reena Sidhu is a Consultant Gastroenterologist and an Honorary Professor with the University of Sheffield. Her main area of interest is the small bowel. She is the lead for the tertiary double balloon enteroscopy service and co-runs one of the largest Capsule Endoscopy services in Europe. Both of these services are established regional services which have won national awards. She has an interest in the use of small bowel endoscopy in IBD and Sheffield was one of the first centres to use the Crohn’s Pillcam in the UK.
Prof Sidhu has an interest in education. She runs an international capsule endoscopy course for doctors, directs a national advanced nurse course on capsule endoscopy, and is frequently invited at endoscopy master classes across the UK. She is also leading a curriculum for Device Assisted Enteroscopy as part of her role in the European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy curricula group. She has also been involved in formalizing accreditation for capsule endoscopy in the UK and is in the process of setting up the same for enteroscopy. She is a member of the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) Endoscopy committee and is the BSG Education Web Editor and has curated a new platform for e-learning.
She carries out clinical research related to the small bowel and IBD and continues to publish actively in this field. She was awarded the Hopkins Endoscopy Prize by the BSG in 2012, the first female gastroenterologist to have ever won this.
She is the first author of the BSG guidelines on capsule endoscopy and enteroscopy, published in 2008 and is also a co-author on the 2015 European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy guidelines on small bowel endoscopy. She led and is the first author of the BSG and Royal College of Anaesthetists Position Statement on the use of propofol sedation for complex endoscopy in the UK.
Dr Anne PhillipsConsultant Gastroenterologist
Dr Anne Phillips has been a Consultant Gastroenterologist in Sheffield since July 2020. After qualifying as a doctor at University of Oxford, Dr Phillips completed her postgraduate general medical and specialist Gastroenterology training in Birmingham. During her time as a registrar she took time out to complete a PhD studying the genetics of IBD at the University of Edinburgh in Prof Satsangi’s lab.
Dr Phillips gained her CCT in March 2013. She was appointed as Consultant Gastroenterologist at York Teaching Hospital in August 2013 where she was lead clinician for IBD and pushed through service development including developing a transition service, and an IBD annual service review. She also strongly advocated involving patients in service development. She is a keen teacher and was Associate Dean for HYMS medical school as site lead for final year medical students, as well as being site Principal Investigator for a number of international IBD research studies.