Professor Chloe Orkin
Physician Scientist and Activist at Queen Mary University of London and Barts Health NHS Trust
Science and Engineering
“Professor Chloe Orkin is Professor of Infection and Inequities at the Queen Mary University of London and a Consultant HIV Physician at Barts Health NHS Trust since 2003.
She is Lead for Equality Diversity and Inclusion in the Faculty of Medicine at QMUL and is producing research on disability in the NHS and in medical academia. She lives openly with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. She has written on ableism in the NHS and her own experiences with hidden disability in the BMJ Leader, a leading health management journal. Chloe has done Twitter Live discussions on her experiences of ableism. As an out lesbian, she has also been previously recognised for her advocacy in the HIV field in the Rainbow List top 100 and by DIVA magazine.
She is considered an activist by people living with HIV because of her work while Chair of the British HIV Association. She was a world-leading advocate for the U=U (Undetectable=Untransmittable) campaign which reduces stigma against people living with HIV. The clip of her explaining U=U to Gareth Thomas on his documentary ‘HIV and Me’ has been watched by +500,000 people and subtitled into other languages as a training tool.
She is a Physician Scientist who specialises in new treatments for viruses like HIV, viral hepatitis, and SARS-CoV-2. During the monkeypox (mpox) pandemic she produced ground-breaking research which changed international guidelines and is now an expert advisor to the World Health Organisation Europe on mpox. Her work focused on people with advanced HIV disease and the life-threatening consequences of mpox to their health. She worked with community activists and contributed to the award-winning podcast What the Pox to reduce stigma against people with mpox.
Chloe has held several leadership roles including being the 80th President of the Medical Women’s Federation, an 106 year-old organisation closely associated with the history of suffrage in the UK. She is a member of the governing council for the International AIDS Society. She advocates for global equity of access to medicines as a scientific advisor to the Medicines Patent Pool, an organisation that works to provide global access to medication and vaccines.
“Invisible disability needs to be spoken about and the word ‘ableism’ needs to be used and the concept more widely understood. I am proud to speak up and be named in the Disability Power 2023 list as an invisibly disabled woman and Physician Scientist who has made a significant contribution to infectious disease research.”
Disability Power 100 2023 profile information has been self-submitted by the profile subject. Shaw Trust understands and respects that disability and impairment descriptors and language use varies from person to person. Shaw Trust assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or discrepancies in the content of this, or any other, profile page.
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