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David Surendran Sanders is Professor of Gastroenterology at the University of Sheffield and an NHS consultant based in the Academic Unit of Gastroenterology, Royal Hallamshire Hospital. He is the current Chair of the Coeliac UK Health Advisory Council.
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Early Years and Education
Sanders was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His family migrated to the United Kingdom during the 1970s due to the civil war. He spent his early years schooling in Bearsden, Glasgow (United Kingdom) where he was Proxime Accessit and won the Scottish School boys National Cross Country Championships in 1985 (under 17 years old category). His sister has published a book detailing the journey of his family (Land of Lost Content by Sureshini Sanders (ISBN 9780957681804).
Sanders attended Glasgow University Medical School (1986-1991) before becoming an Action Research Fellow in 1999. He became a Fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology in 2003.
Research
Sanders is an internationally recognised researcher in coeliac disease and gluten related disorders. He benchmarked the prevalence of adult coeliac disease to be 1% within the United Kingdom and his Lancet paper described the first association between irritable bowel type symptoms and unrecognised coeliac disease.
More recently Sanders has published research assessing whether gluten has a deleterious effect on individuals who do not have coeliac disease. His other areas of research interest include small bowel endoscopy, gastrostomy feeding, pancreatic exocrine insufficiency, irritable bowel syndrome and gastrointestinal bleeding.
Awards
In 2010 Sanders received a European Rising Star Award in Gastroenterology and the Cuthbertson Medal in 2011 (The Nutrition Society).
His clinical work with patients who have coeliac disease has resulted in him being awarded the 2010 Coeliac UK Healthcare Professional of the Year Award and the inaugural Complete Nutrition Coeliac Health Care Professional Award (2013).
Sanders works within the Sheffield Gastroenterology team. The Small Bowel Endoscopy Service won one of the inaugural MAGIC Gastrointestinal Care awards (2011) and the Medipex award (2013). In 2014 the Royal Hallamshire Hospital Gastroenterology team, were finalists in the British Medical Journal Awards and won a SAGE Award (Shire Awards for Gastrointestinal Excellence) for their primary care and gastrointestinal bleed unit services.
Administration
Sanders has chaired both the British Society of Gastroenterology (BSG) Small Bowel and Nutrition Section (2006-2012) and the BSG Audit Committee (2010-2013). Sanders works within the Sheffield Institute of Gluten-Related Disorders(SIGReD) created by his colleague Professor Marios Hadjivassiliou through collaboration between the departments of Neurology and Gastroenterology at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. SIGReD brings together researchers and academics that collaborate on pioneering work into how the diagnosis of coeliac disease could be improved through increased recognition of symptoms not always connected to the bowel.
Medicine and Media
Increased awareness in gluten related disease has led to Sanders being interviewed for articles in the Guardian, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and a number of magazines. Sanders is the author of Gluten Attack (Random House Publishing).
Personal life
Sanders lives in Sheffield and is married to fellow Glasgow University medical graduate Iman Azmy. They have 2 children.