Rate My Professor John Highton

John Highton is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Medicine, Dunedin School of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine at the University of Otago. He holds the degrees of MB ChB and MD from the University of Otago and is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (FRACP). Appointed Professor in Medicine in 2006, he is a very senior researcher who has driven rheumatology research at the University of Otago since the mid-1970s. Professor Highton has trained a number of rheumatologists and previously served as Head of the Rheumatology Section.

His academic interests center on rheumatic diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, and systemic sclerosis. Key publications include "Adenosine receptor expression in rheumatoid synovium: a basis for methotrexate action" (Rheumatology, 2012, with L.K. Stamp et al.); "A comparison of fatigue correlates in rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis" (Rheumatology, 2010, with S. Stebbings et al.); "Probiotic therapy for the treatment of spondyloarthritis" (Journal of Rheumatology, 2010, with K. Jenks et al.); "Pulmonary rheumatoid nodules demonstrating features usually seen in rheumatoid synovitis" (Rheumatology, 2007); "Dendritic cells provide a potential link between smoking and inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis" (Arthritis Research & Therapy, 2012, with M.G. Kazantseva et al.); "The ITGAV rs3738919 variant and susceptibility to rheumatoid arthritis" (Arthritis Research & Therapy, 2009, with J.E. Hollis-Moffatt et al.); "Replication of association of the interleukin 23 receptor rs1343151 variant with rheumatoid arthritis in Caucasian sample sets" (Genes and Immunity, 2012, with M. Chen-Xu et al.); and "Co-expression of CD21L and IL17A defines a subset of human CD4+ T-cells" (PLoS ONE, 2018, with K.J. McKelvey et al.). In 2007, he delivered the Inaugural Professorial Lecture "From E to T: Rheumatic Diseases Research in the University of Otago."