The lecture is free to attend and open to all, but registration is required in advance – book your seat via Eventbrite
A pre-lecture reception with tea, coffee and cakes will be held on the SAF level 1 Mezzanine from 16:45, whilst a wine reception with canapés will follow the lecture at 18:30
Interact with the list lecture via the hashtag #endofallergy
Abstract
100 years ago allergies barely existed. Today they’re a global burden. Treatments have suffered from a lack of clarity over what caused this change, with popular wisdom shifting from allergens, to personal hygiene and the changing local environment.
Professor Adnan Custovic is a Clinical Professor of Paediatric Allergies who believes that we may have finally turned a corner. Around the millennium Adnan was part of a research community advancing the idea that diagnosing a child with asthma was no better than saying they had a fever. GPs were ascribing the term to symptoms caused by various distinct diseases. This complexity suggested a one size fits all approach to treating allergies like asthma would never work, laying the ground for a move towards more precise, personalised medicine.
In his inaugural lecture Adnan will talk through the challenge of unpicking asthma and how a more collaborative approach, bringing together not just medical professionals but also engineers and computer scientists could move us from the end of the beginning to the start of something really exciting in the treatment of allergies.
Biography
Adnan Custovic is Clinical Professor of Paediatric Allergy at Imperial College London. His professional training consisted of a Specialist training in Paediatrics (University Children’s Hospital Sarajevo, 1987-91) and successive appointments as Clinical Research Fellow and Specialist Registrar in Allergy (University Hospital of South Manchester, 1992-98).
This period saw him awarded MSc. (1991), M.D. with Gold Medal (1996) and PhD. (2000). He was awarded prestigious National Asthma Campaign Senior Clinical Research Fellowship (2000-2005). Dr Custovic was promoted to a position of Reader at the University of Manchester in 2000, which was followed by a professorship in 2002. He was a Professor of Allergy at the University of Manchester until September 2015, when he moved to Imperial College.
In 2015 he was awarded European Respiratory Society Gold Medal for research in asthma. In 2013 he received the BSACI William Frankland Medal for outstanding contributions to clinical allergy, and the CIPP President’s award for the distinguished achievements in childhood asthma. He delivered numerous prestigious keynote/named lectures, including Nemacolin Asthma Conference (2014), Alain De Weck Memorial Lecture (2013), Cas Motala Memorial Lecture (South African Allergy Society, 2013), James Hutchison’s Memorial Lecture (Hong Kong Paediatric Society, 2012), the RSM Priscilla Piper Lecture (2011) and Caspar Weinberg Lecture (2007). He has supervised 17 PhD/MD students to completion, was an Associate Editor of Thorax, and serves on 13 journal editorial boards. He has served as a Secretary of the BSACI for two terms, and as President of Asthma section of the EAACI.