Dr Hassan-Smith’s research interests are in Musculoskeletal Endocrinology, Metabolic/ Rare Bone disease and Precision Endocrinology. He has been awarded an NIHR WM CRN Research Scholarship. He has been awarded EPSRC seedcorn funding. He is an Editorial Advisor to the BMJ. He sits on the Society for Endocrinology Public Engagement Committee and is a Media Ambassador.
He carried out undergraduate and junior medical training at St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London Hospitals. He set out on a path as an academic endocrinologist after completing an intercalated BMedSci project on genotyping single nucleotide polymorphisms in the ghrelin and GHRH receptors. He completed junior medical training on the St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London rotation.
He completed higher speciality training in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Endocrinology in the West Midlands, and has held National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funded Academic Clinical Fellow and European Research Council Clinical Research Fellow posts. He completed his PhD under the supervision of Professor Paul Stewart on the role of pre-receptor glucocorticoid metabolism (via the 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenases) in ageing, sarcopenia and metabolic diseases.
He was awarded the Young Endocrinologist Prize for Top Scoring Oral Communication by the Society for Endocrinology, the Mayo Clinic Research Fellowship. He has a number publications in leading medical journals (including NEJM, JCI, PNAS, JACC, Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology, JCEM and EJE).
In his clinical lecturer post he has investigated the role of vitamin D metabolism in determining human muscle function working with Professor Martin Hewison (IMSR) group and Professor Neil Gittoes (Centre for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Birmingham Health Partners). In doing so he has performed detailed studies integrating data from muscle function (using jump plate mechanography and grip strength analysis), body composition, high-throughput multi-metabolite vitamin D and glucocorticoid detection, metabolomics, along with gene expression from biopsies.