The most highly cited author in Sports Medicine, Professor Maffulli is a Consultant Orthopaedic and Sports Injury Surgeons. After medical school in Naples, Italy, Nicola moved to London, and completed his Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery training with a special interest in Sports Medicine. Nicola was the first full time competitively appointment Lecturer in Sports Medicine at the Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital. He became a Professor in Sport and Exercise Medicine at Queen Mary University of London in 2008, from a professorial position in Trauma and Orthopaedics. Trained by John King, the initiator of the Course in Sports Medicine at the London, Nicola developed the research aspect of Sports and Exercise Medicine not just from the orthopaedic side: basic sciences have always been in his mind, and has contributed to the literature in sports physiology and the genetics of sports performance. He has published more than 1,500 peer reviewed articles in scientific journals and 12 books, and has described more than 50 new surgical techniques in the field of knee, foot and ankle, and sports surgery.

A keen free style wrestler and judo player in his younger day, his dream of going to the Olympics was granted in London: he organised the medical services for the judo and wrestling tournaments at the London 2012 Olympics, and for the World Medical Games in Italy in 2019.

Many of Nicola’s trainees have become consultants and professors in their own right, and sports physicians for elite and professional teams.