Professor Andrew Carr ChM DSc FRCS FMedSci is a surgeon and clinical scientist. He was born in Bradford and studied medicine at Bristol University before training in Sheffield, Oxford, Seattle and Melbourne.
His research over 40 years has had a significant influence on the management of patients undergoing orthopaedic surgery. Whilst working with John Goodfellow, he defined the use of the Oxford Knee as a partial knee replacement which has been implanted in over two million people worldwide. He pioneered the increased involvement of patients in assessing the effectiveness of orthopaedic surgery. The Oxford Scores he co-developed with Ray Fitzpatrick are now used globally to assess patient outcomes and direct national health policies for joint replacement operations. He has focussed on improving the interdisciplinary skills and infrastructure required for large scale surgical trials and has led and contributed to both UK and international multicentre trials. He has led the controversial use of placebo controls in surgical trials which has resulted in the decommissioning of ineffective operations. His work on chronic musculoskeletal pain has identified the importance of unresolved inflammation and, collaborating with Irene Tracey, established the importance of central pain sensitisation as a contributor to chronic musculoskeletal pain. He is one of the 25 most cited surgical researchers globally with over 250 publications, including over 40 in the Lancet, BMJ, Science Translational Medicine, Cell and Nature Biotechnology.