Professor Helena Marzo-Ortega (LMS MRCP PhD), is an academic clinician and the Clinical Lead of the multi-award winning Leeds Specialist Spondyloarthropathy service at The Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, where she has developed a successful multi-specialty and multi-disciplinary clinical and research hub.
Following the completion of her PhD at the University of Leeds, Prof Marzo-Ortega’s academic activity is largely focused on translational research. She has broad expertise as clinical triallist, and has been PI or CI to over 70 clinical trials ranging from phase II to phase IV and was the Inaugural Lead of the West Yorkshire NIHR CRN (2008-2012). Her research activities focus on identifying treatment strategies and charactering biomarkers of response to therapy in Spondyloarthritis and the preclinical phase of psoriatic arthritis. She has an H index of 76.
Prof Marzo-Ortega currently combines her clinical activity with an active membership of different working groups within ASAS, EULAR and OMERACT. At national level, Helena is past Chair, founder member and Trustee of the British Society for Spondyloarthritis (BRITSpA) and a past member of the British Society for Rheumatology’s Heberden Committee. Internationally, she is a member of the Executive Committee of the Assessment of Spondyloarthritis International Society (ASAS) and member of the Scientific Committee and Past President of the International Spondylarthritides Congress.
Helena sits on the Medical Advisory Board of the UK National Ankylosing Spondylitis patient Society (NASS), the Spondylitis Association of America (SAA) and the Axial Spondyloarthritis International Federation (ASIF). A past member of the steering committee of the Leeds Female Leaders Network, which aims to bring and support women into academia, she was the recipient of a University of Leeds Woman of Achievement Award in 2021.