MRC & Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma
Aims to provide authoritative public information on asthma
and allergy to further advance the understanding of asthma at system,
cellular and molecular levels to inform the development of new,
effective and targeted treatments.
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The Centre was formed in October 2005 as a partnership between MRC, Asthma UK, Imperial and KCL. The Centre’s capability in translational research has been further enhanced by forming a partnership with Queen Mary’s University. This link provides a wealth of experience in researching asthma in the primary care community and access to a network of General Practices and their patients in the East End of London. This is critical as most asthmatic patients in the UK are now looked after by their GPs.
The Centre has provided a very stimulating training environment for its postgraduate community and junior postdoctoral scientists. There is a great demand for the Centre’s training posts and the quality of the postgraduate students has risen very strikingly; 92% of our students achieved a distinction or merit in the MSc Immunology degree part of their newly established 4-year PhD course.
Key research themes
The Centre’s research themes are:
* Airway inflammation and function
* Environment and infection
* Genetics and epigenetics
* IgE structure, function and regulation
* Immunomodulation
The Centre offers a group of highly motivated and internationally competitive scientists opportunities for interactions and complementation of skills, while still preserving scientific independence. Considerable added value comes from the multidisciplinary nature of the team that is addressing a complex problem from gene to the community and from womb to adulthood. The clinical/basic-science interface has been one of the keys to its success, providing improved opportunities for new ideas to arise and for discoveries to be fully exploited for the benefit of health care.
Conference - Vitamin D: Mechanisms in Health and Disease
On March 30th 2010 the MRC and Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma and the Centre for Health Sciences at Barts and the London Medical School co-hosted an international conference of over 250 delegates devoted to understanding the health effects of vitamin D. Expert speakers from USA, Italy, Belgium, Germany and London, including our own Kasia Hawrylowicz and Adrian Martineau, covered epidemiological, immunological, genetic and public health aspects of vitamin D. Health areas addressed included type 1 and 2 diabetes, tuberculosis, asthma, multiple sclerosis, dermatology, autoimmune disease, and the gut. The conference attracted coverage from major media including BBC Radio 4.
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