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

• 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

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 Department and Clinical Academic Training Lead for Acute Care.

Teaching Programmes

• Medicine and Surgery MBChB
  • 1^st Year MBChB Respiratory (IRM) Module
  • 3rd/4th Year Respiratory Co-Lead
  • Deputy Lead Respiratory Medicine Masters Programme
• Biomedical Materials Science BMedSc student supervision
• Research tasters for students
• Offers Personal Interest Projects: Respiratory and ICM

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.

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.