The Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences have announced their lists of new Fellows for 2023. Congratulations to the following BSI members and immunologists on being elected as Fellows in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the discipline.
Royal Society Fellows
Professor Judith Allen FRS
Professor of Immunobiology, Faculty of Medicine, Biology and Health, University of Manchester
Professor Allen is the leading expert on macrophages activated by the immune system during helminth infection. Her lab was one of the first to define a macrophage activation phenotype uniquely associated with Th2-type immunity in vivo and to investigate links between macrophage function and tissue repair. She is highly collaborative across Europe, Asia and the Americas, placing her at the international interface of different disciplines that contribute to our understanding of macrophage biology. Professor Allen makes a major contribution to wider science through her membership of grant awarding committees and her editorial board roles.
Professor Bryan Charleston FRS
Director and CEO, Pirbright Institute
Professor Charleston's research is focused on understanding the immune response to foot–and–mouth disease virus (FMDV) in cattle to develop novel vaccines. He joined The Pirbright Institute in 1994, focusing on studies of the immune response to viral infections in cattle. He has provided advice and expertise on the design of infectious disease challenge models for a wide range of pathogens in important agricultural species.
Professor Michael Dustin FRS
Kennedy Trust Professor of Molecular Immunology, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences and Director of Research, Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, University of Oxford
Professor Dustin's laboratory focuses on the cell biology of T cell activation during the initiation and effector phase of immune responses. He pioneered the use of supported lipid bilayers as surrogate antigen-presenting cells to quantify the receptor-ligand interactions and dynamics underlying immunological synapses. This work includes the recent observation that the small vesicles enriched in T cell receptor, synaptic ectosomes, are directly budded into the immunological synapse, handing off T cell receptor and other cargo to the antigen-presenting cell.
Dame Sarah Gilbert DBE FMedSci FRS
Said Professor of Vaccinology, Pandemic Sciences Institute, University of Oxford
Dame Gilbert is one of the UK’s foremost academic vaccinologists. Her chief research interest is the development of viral vector vaccines that work by inducing strong and protective T and B cell responses. She leads work on influenza vaccine development as well as vaccines for many different emerging pathogens, including Nipah virus, MERS and Lassa virus. In 2020, she became the Oxford Project Leader for the ChAdOx1 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, which has now been used in many countries around the world in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Dame Gilbert was awarded Lifetime Honorary Membership of the British Society for Immunology in 2021.
You can find out more about the 2023 intake of Royal Society Fellows on the Royal Society website.
Academy of Medical Sciences Fellows
Professor Susan Hopkins CBE FMedSci
Chief Medical Advisor, UK Health Security Agency
Professor Susan Hopkins is the Chief Medical Advisor at the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). In this capacity she leads the Clinical and Public Health Group whose objective is to provide professional health security, clinical and public health leadership. She is also a Professor of Infectious Diseases and Health Security at University College London and continues to work clinically as a consultant in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. Professor Hopkins has a special interest in chronic bone and joint infections, out-patient parenteral antimicrobial therapy, antimicrobial stewardship and hospital epidemiology.
Professor Helen Lachmann FMedSci
Professor of Medicine and Honorary Consultant in Amyloidosis, University College London
Professor Helen Lachmann specialises in amyloidosis and autoinflammatory diseases. Her research has been published widely and has a predominantly clinical focus, notably including phenotypic characterisation and studies into the treatment of acquired and hereditary forms of systemic amyloidosis, the genetics and management of the inherited systemic autoinflammatory conditions, and the use of novel therapies in inherited periodic fever syndromes.
Professor Claudia Mauri FMedSci
Professor of Immunology, University College London
Professor Mauri’s main research focuses on the identification, functional analysis and the genetical characterization of regulatory B cells. Her complementary interest includes the understanding of the cause of the loss of regulation of immune responses (regulatory B and T cells), which may be the cause of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Her innovative research includes harnessing the regulatory properties of B cells in the therapy of autoimmune disease. Professor Mauri was amongst the first three groups in the world to identify a novel subset of B cells with strong suppressive capacity.
Professor Robin May FMedSci
Professor of Infectious Diseases, University of Birmingham and Chief Scientific Advisor at Food Standards Agency
Professor Robin May’s research centres on human infectious diseases, focusing on host-pathogen interactions. In particular, his research seeks to understand how some pathogens are able to subvert the innate immune system. The major focus of his group is on fungal infections, with a particular interest in cryptococcosis. This potentially fatal disease is caused by two pathogenic species of Cryptococci, Cryptococcus neoformans and C. gattii, which share a remarkable ability to evade the innate immune system and disseminate throughout the body. Much of his work is aimed at improving the treatment or prevention of opportunistic infections in patients with impaired immunity, such as individuals living with HIV, patients in critical care, or people with long-term immune-compromising conditions.
Professor Matthew Snape FMedSci
Vice President, Clinical Development Paediatric and Maternal Vaccine, Moderna
Professor Matthew Snape’s principal areas of research relate to vaccines against meningococcal, pneumococcal, influenza, RSV and Ebola virus disease. Recently, his work has involved analysing how children are affected by COVID-19, as well as what role they may play in spreading the virus. During the COVID-19 pandemic Professor Snape acted as Chief Investigator on the NIHR funded 'COM-COV' studies providing unique data on the use of 'Mix and Match' COVID-19 vaccine schedules. He also led the 'What's the STORY' seroprevalence study researching ways of surveying how well protected we are from infectious diseases by collecting blood samples from young people who represent different groups across society and evaluating rates of COVID-19 infection.
Professor Carola G. Vinuesa FRS FMedSci
Principal Group Leader, Francis Crick Institute
Professor Carola Vinuesa’s research aims to identify factors that contribute to the development of autoimmunity. To date, her laboratory has identified genes, cell types and checkpoints that are important to prevent autoimmune diseases in which antibodies are harmful. Her team is also working towards connecting genetic variation in humans to autoimmune disease to identify more targeted treatments. These vitally important discoveries are helping to create disease models that can be used to understand the development of autoimmune diseases, refine diagnosis, and trial new treatments.
Professor Gavin Wright FMedSci
Senior Group Leader, University of York
Professor Gavin Wright’s research focuses on identifying new therapeutic targets for both genetic and infectious diseases by using systematic large-scale protein-based approaches to discover extracellular receptor-ligand interactions that are essential for cellular recognition processes. Extracellular interactions are excellent therapeutic targets because they are directly accessible to systematically delivered drugs such as monoclonal antibodies. The protein-based technologies developed in Professor Wright’s laboratory are being used to identify vaccine targets for parasitic diseases. His laboratory is also currently developing vaccines for kinetoplastid parasites such as trypanosomes that affect some of the most disadvantaged people in the world.
You can find out more about the 2023 intake of Academy of Medical Sciences Fellows on the Academy of Medical Sciences website.