Each year, the British Society for Immunology awards honorary lifetime membership to individuals in recognition of their outstanding contribution to immunology and/or to the Society. This honour is awarded after rigorous discussion and a vote by the Trustees. For 2025, we are delighted to announce that Professor Liz Simpson and Dr Kimberly Gilmour were made BSI Honorary Members at a ceremony conducted at BSI Congress.
Professor Elizabeth Simpson
Elizabeth Simpson's illustrious career spans many of the key innovations and specialisms within immunology. Having initially qualified in veterinary medicine, she trained in pathology at Cambridge University where she became interested in similarities between protective responses to tumours and rejection of transplants in both humans and in other species. From here, she started work alongside Nobel laureate Peter Medawar during a critical period in the late 1960s when the immunology of graft rejection first began to be understood. Her research focus was on antigens present only in grafts from male mice, research that eventually made it possible to track down the genes responsible on the Y chromosome.
A major focus of her subsequent work was investigating how T cells, which play a major role in rejecting foreign tissue, recognise these Y chromosome antigens. Her in depth, elegant work of multiple facets of this has made contributions to our understanding of the mechanisms of immunological tolerance and graft rejection. Her discoveries have been critical in making organ transplantation safer and more successful for patients.
She has worked in leading institutes around the world, but spent the majority of her career in London at the National Institute for Medical Research, and latterly at Imperial College London, first as one of the founding PIs and then as Deputy Director of the Clinical Sciences Centre. She now holds the role of Emeritus Professor of Transplantation Biology. Her contribution to the field of immunology and transplantation biology has been immense and it is our absolute pleasure to recognise her achievements with an honorary membership.
Dr Kimberly Gilmour
Kimberly Gilmour is an internationally acclaimed clinical scientist. She is Chief of Laboratory Medicine, Clinical Lead for the Immunology and Director of Cell Therapy at Great Ormond Street Hospital. In collaboration with medical genetics, she developed and now heads the national service for diagnosing primary immunodeficiencies.
Her contribution to advancing patient care and treatment is unparalleled. She has developed a number of protein and mRNA based diagnosis of primary immunodeficiency and transduction of cells for gene therapy trials. She was one of two clinical scientists who manufactured the cells for successfully treating the first X-linked Severe Combined Immunodeficient baby in the UK with gene therapy and has since paved the way with her in depth contribution to gene therapy research for primary immunodeficiencies. In addition, she has played a pivotal role in the UK clinical immunology community, first through her representation of clinical scientists via the UK Primary Immunodeficiency Network (she was the first non-medic to chair the organising committee for a very successful UKPIN conference) and supporting through our merger to form the BSI Clinical Immunology Professional Network.
Kimberly shows exceptional leadership, both within her lab where she leads with unmatched inclusiveness and outside her lab through her selfless dedication to patients with immunodeficiency. She is a wonderful advocate for clinical immunology and we are honoured to have her as a lifetime member of the BSI.