The Royal Society and the Academy of Medical Sciences have announced their lists of new Fellows for 2024. 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 Sir Andrew Pollard FMedSci FRS
Ashall Professor of Infection and Immunity, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Disease, Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford
Professor Sir Pollard is Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group in the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford and a consultant paediatrician at Oxford Children’s Hospital and Fellow of St Cross College. He was awarded honorary membership of the British Society for Immunology in 2021. His research includes novel observations on the B cell response in early childhood, the design, development and clinical evaluation of vaccines in UK, Asia, Africa and Latin America, including those for COVID-19, typhoid, meningococcus, Haemophilus influenzae type b, pneumococcus, plague, pertussis, influenza, rabies, coronavirus and Ebola, and leads studies using a human challenge model of paratyphoid and typhoid. He chairs the UK Department of Health and Social Care’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. He was the chief investigator for the clinical trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in 2020 and he received a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2021 for services to public health, especially in the pandemic.
Professor Lorraine Symington FRS
Harold S Ginsberg Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Columbia University
The focus of Professor Symington's laboratory research during the last decade has been to identify new genes involved in homologous recombination and further characterisation of the RAD52 group genes using budding yeast as a model system. The Symington Lab uses the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model eukaryotic genetic system to determine the mechanisms of mitotic/somatic genome stability.
You can find out more about the 2024 intake of Royal Society Fellows on the Royal Society website.
Academy of Medical Sciences Fellows
Professor Mark Cragg
Professor in Experimental Cancer Biology, University of Southampton
As a cancer immunologist, Professor Cragg's research uncovers how the immune system interacts with cancer cells and how it can be harnessed in the form of immunotherapy to treat malignancy; particularly by using drugs called monoclonal antibodies. Underpinning this biology are a family of receptors called Fc receptors which serve as a link between the antibodies and the immune cells. Adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, his research group interacts widely with other members of Cancer Sciences, the Faculty of Medicine, the University, and colleagues in academia and industry, both nationally and internationally.
Professor Julian Knight
Professor of Genomic Medicine, University of Oxford
Professor Knight's work aims to promote excellence in translational genomic science and delivery into the clinic for patient benefit. He does this through an active research programme and leadership in local and national initiatives establishing use of genomic medicine through education and clinical implementation. His research uses a genetics and -omics led approach to understand why some individuals develop an inappropriate or dysregulated immune response, how this may contribute to disease, and opportunities to advance personalised medicine approaches. This includes application to the severe infection and critical illness together with autoimmune disease.
Professor Teresa Lambe OBE
Calleva Head of Vaccine Immunology and Professor of Vaccinology & Immunology and PSI Investigator, University of Oxford
Professor Lambe is leading a research group which improves human health by controlling disease through vaccination – stopping epidemics before they become pandemics. Professor Lambe is one of the Principal Investigators overseeing the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine programme; she co-designed the vaccine in January 2020, led the preclinical studies, and then oversaw the delivery of the immune results needed to support regulatory approval in late 2020. The vaccine has played a pivotal role in the fight against COVID-19 – estimated to have saved >6 million lives globally in 2021 alone. Professor Lambe’s group is particularly interested in delineating the protective immune response post infection and using these findings to rationally design vaccination strategies to prevent disease. Professor Lambe was appointed as an honorary OBE for her services to Sciences and Public Health in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours and received the Presidential Distinguished Service Award for the Irish Abroad in 2022. She is also an Honorary member and a current Trustee of the BSI.
Professor Faith Osier
Co-Director & Chair, Immunology & Vaccinology, Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London
Professor Osier's vision is to “Make Malaria History” through vaccination. She previously led two core teams of over 25 scientists across the KEMRI–Wellcome Trust Research Program in Kenya and Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany. The projects focused on creating highly effective malaria vaccines through vaccine candidate discovery, identifying immune correlates of protection and unravelling important mechanisms underlying antibody-dependent protection. Professor Osier is the current President of the International Union of Immunological Societies – the first African and only second woman in this role. She has won multiple prestigious prizes including the Royal Society Pfizer Award, the Sofja Kovalevskaja Award from the Humboldt foundation and the UKRI-MRC/DFID African Research Leader Award. She is also a 2018 TED Fellow, a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences and an honorary member of the BSI.
You can find out more about the 2024 intake of Academy of Medical Sciences Fellows on the Academy of Medical Sciences website.