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A professor who has had a very varied career path, has been honoured for an outstanding career in liver medicine.
Professor William Rosenberg, a consultant hepatologist who has worked at the Royal Free Hospital for the past 17 years, was invited to present the prestigious Sheila Sherlock lecture at the British Society of Gastroenterology, shining a spotlight on his many achievements.
He said delivering the lecture, as part of the 2025 Sheila Sherlock award, was a huge honour, although he still has ambitions he would like to realise.
“I am so honoured to have delivered this lifetime lecture but I’ve still got some things to do in research and I want NIHR to help frontline clinicians to embed research in their careers,” he said.
“I’ve had unbelievably wonderful collaborations with people across the NHS and academia, latterly at UCL and the Royal Free Hospital. I want to highlight the ward and clinical nurse specialist teams and pharmacists I’ve worked with over the years, who have been incredible. I’d also like to thank all the PhD and Masters students who have contributed to my group’s research.”
Delivering his lecture, Professor Rosenberg said his school report from 1966 warned his parents: “William is educationally subnormal and will never be able to access mainstream education. You need to adjust your expectations.”
Professor Rosenberg said the spell-check function had helped him with his dyslexia and he had successfully harnessed his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to enable him to work on many different topics simultaneously. He went to Cambridge University, studied medicine at Guy’s Hospital and trained in London before moving to Oxford as a registrar in medicine.
In 1988 he took up a Wellcome Trust fellowship in molecular immunology leading to a PhD. His work on T-cells laid the early groundwork for modern CAR T-cell therapies which modify a patient’s own immune cells to target and destroy cancer.
He went on to establish the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine in Oxford before moving to University of Southampton where he became director of the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility and director of NHS Research and Development. While in Southampton he led research that invented the Enhanced Liver Fibrosis (ELF) test which is used to detect and assess liver fibrosis progression in those with chronic liver disease.
In 2007 he left his post at the University of Southampton to become professor of hepatology and deputy director of the Institute for Hepatology at University College London. In addition, he became director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)/Wellcome Clinical Research Facility and a theme lead of the UCLH NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.
In 2008 Professor Rosenberg joined the Royal Free Hospital as a consultant hepatologist and as deputy director of the Centre for Hepatology, latterly the Institute for Liver and Digestive Health.
At the Royal Free Hospital he has led clinical studies and trials establishing diagnostic pathways for liver disease and new treatments for hepatitis C and B. He also established pathways of care for viral hepatitis and fatty and alcohol related liver disease in community settings, including prisons. In addition, he established the role of blood-based non-invasive testing for liver disease in the community to aid early diagnosis of liver disease.
His external appointments have included a variety of posts within the NIHR from 2006 on. He is currently their national associate director for health and care research.
Professsor Rosenberg said he thought the two key things he would be remembered for were his championing of evidence-based medicine, an approach that integrates the best available evidence into best clinical care, and the invention of the ELF test.
