UK & EU Medical Advisors
Professor Hanne Albert PT MSc PhD
Professor Hanne Albert is a leading expert on lumbar disc herniation and Modic changes. In 2013, she published a ground-breaking paper in the European Spine Journal which described a double-blind, placebo-controlled, and randomised clinical trial with 162 patients which demonstrated that an oral antibiotic treatment offered a curative treatment for these chronic low back pain patients by removing the bacterial infection. Professor Albert was awarded the prestigious German Award for Pain Research and Contribution to Medicine for this work and other studies in this space in 2017.
She is currently an editor of the European Spine Journal, and a reviewer for several other prestigious international journals including The Lancet. With over 50 peer-reviewed publications, Professor Albert is a leading keynote speaker for the sector and frequently travels to speak at international conferences. She is a recipient of the Danish Physiotherapists Research Award, The Columna prize from The Danish Society for Musculoskeletal Medicine, and the award for best scientific presentation from the European Spine Society.
Professor Albert qualified as a physiotherapist and later gained a Masters of Public Health from the Nordic School of Public Health in Gothenburg, Sweden, and a Ph.D. from the University of Southern Denmark in 2004. She worked with Professor Manniche at the University of Southern Denmark from 2000 to 2013, and has been the medical director of the Modic Clinic in Odense, Denmark, since 2013. She was appointed Professor at Rush University in Chicago in February 2023.
Professor Albert is a founding member of Persica Pharmaceuticals.
Dr Preben Joffe
Dr Preben Joffe is Medical Director and owner of Medkoncept ApS, a public health focussed company, as well as being part time Chief Physician at SOS International working in Medical Governance. He completed his medical degree at the University of Copenhagen in 1983 and his post-graduate studies led him to becoming a Consultant in Nephrology & Internal Medicine.
Dr Joffe was a member of several national and international committees on aspects relating to Peritoneal Dialysis and Metabolic Renal Bone Disorders for more than 20 years. He has a special interest regarding infections in Nephrology and served as Chief Physician in Nephrology at a leading Danish university hospital for 10 years. Additionally, Dr Joffe held a position as Medical Director and co-owner of VikTeam A/S, a medical physician recruitment company, for nine years and oversaw the development of a start-up through ISO certification and a market leading position.
Dr Joffe has been extensively involved in medical marketing activities in a number of countries serving as a consultant for the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. He has published over 70 original articles in leading peer reviewed journals.
Professor Claus Manniche MD, Dr. Med
Professor Claus Manniche is one of the world’s leading experts on chronic low back pain. In 1988, he published the results of a clinical trial in The Lancet demonstrating the efficacy of exercise therapy in treating chronic low back pain. This study led to a paradigm shift in the understanding of low back pain and active spine rehabilitation, and its principles still underpin the standard of care for chronic low back pain today. He also developed a Low Back Pain Rating Scale which is still used in research projects around the world.
Throughout his career Professor Manniche has received the following awards for his pioneering work on back pain: the Danish Society for Manual Medicine Honorary Award (1989) Hvirvelsøjleprisen; the Danish Chiropractors’ Association Researcher Prize (1991); the Scandinavian Journal of Rheumatology’s 40th Nordic Anniversary Prize (1995); the “Quality Award for the year 1996” Aarhus Amt; and the Danish Chiropractor; Association honorary award on behalf of Back Center Fyn (2008). He was chief editor of the Danish rheumatology journal Reumatologi between 1994 and 2000, and co-editor since 2001. In total, he has published more than 200 internationally indexed scientific papers.
Professor Manniche graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1982 with a degree in medicine and gained his license to practice in 1985. After gaining a law degree from the same university in 1988, Professor Manniche concentrated on the field of back pain and rheumatology, becoming a specialist in rheumatology in 1994. He was appointed as Professor and Director of the Spine Center of Southern Denmark in 1998.
Professor Manniche is a founding member of Persica Pharmaceuticals.
Dr Michael Rud Lassen
Dr Michael Rud Lassen completed his medical studies at the University of Copenhagen in 1982 and went on to become a Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon. He has held leading positions at several university hospitals in several different regions in Denmark. He was the Chairman of the Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Copenhagen from 2002-11 and Chairman of the Spine Section, Orthopaedic Department at Zealand Hospital from 2016. Michael has published more than 140 papers in peer reviewed international medical journals in the period from 1985-2019 in addition to 11 invited authorships in international journals. More than 250,000 patients have been included in clinical trials that Michael has participated in. He has given more than 50 oral presentations at various international scientific meetings, plus > 40 poster presentations. Michael has sat on numerous medical advisory boards of leading international pharma and medical instrumentation companies.
Peter Lambert BSc PhD DSc
Peter Lambert is Emeritus Professor of Microbial Chemistry in Health and Life Sciences at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. Following his initial academic training as a chemist, he studied the nature and biochemistry of bacterial cell walls with Professor Sir James Baddiley, at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He then worked in the Pharmaceutical industry as Section Head of Microbial Biochemistry at Glaxo Group Research, where he was engaged in the search for novel antibiotics. At Aston University he developed multidisciplinary research projects in the areas of: infectious diseases, their diagnosis and treatment; molecular typing and epidemiology of infectious diseases; microbial pathogenicity, virulence factors, adhesion and colonisation, resistance to host defences; antibiotics, mechanisms of action and resistance; Structure, function, properties and biosynthesis of microbial cell walls and membranes.
Peter was part of the clinical research team in Birmingham that first suggested that the inflammation seen around the nerve root in patients with sciatica may be caused by microbial infection (Stirling et al, The Lancet 2001). He then worked with Professor Claus Manniche and Dr Hanne Albert on the culture and characterisation of bacteria from disc material recovered from patients with Modic 1 changes. This work provided strong evidence for an association between Modic type 1 changes in disc vertebrae and infection with bacteria, especially Propionibacterium acnes. Peter has over 300 original research publications and has authored and contributed to many text books in the areas of Clinical Microbiology, Antibiotic Mode of Action and Resistance, and Microbial Physiology.
Dr John Tanner MBBS BSc FFSEM DM-SMed DSMSA
Dr John Tanner is a Musculoskeletal / Sports Physician and Medical Osteopath having trained first as a GP at the Royal London Hospital. He has over 30 years’ experience and previously worked as an Associate Specialist at Odstock Rehabilitation in the Pain Management team for 10 years. More recently, Dr Tanner developed the Oving Clinic, a specialist centre for musculoskeletal medicine and sports injury, where he offers treatment for all types of sports injuries including minimally invasive spine interventions. He also instructs for the Spine Intervention Society on these techniques. Dr Tanner pioneered the use of extracorporeal shockwave therapy in tendinopathy in the UK and has a special interest in chronic musculoskeletal and spinal pain, interventional pain relief techniques and psychological management.
Dr Tanner teaches and lectures both nationally and internationally and is a member of the International Academy of Manual and Musculoskeletal Medicine. He set up a new course for Post Graduate Modular training for doctors in Musculoskeletal Medicine offered by the British Institute of Musculoskeletal Medicine, where he is a past President and teaches diagnostic ultrasound at AECC Bournemouth University MSc programme.
Dr Tanner has authored several books on back pain the most recent being ‘Your Guide to Back Pain’ by the BMA. He has served as a referee for the Editorial Board of Spine, as Editor for International Musculoskeletal Medicine and published numerous articles in peer reviewed journals. He also writes for textbooks in Musculoskeletal medicine and training manuals. He is an adviser to the Education committee of the British Association of Sports and Exercise Medicine. In recognition of his contributions, Dr Tanner has been awarded a Fellowship of the Faculty of Sports and Exercise Medicine in the UK and Ireland.