Professor Dougan is currently Head of Pathogen Research and a member of the Board of Management at The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (WTSI) in Cambridge, United Kingdom. He is also an Honorary Professor at Cambridge University and a Fellow of Wolfson College. His personal research team studies enteric pathogens with a strong emphasis on basic pathogenic mechanisms and immunology and he contributes to the Mouse Genetic Programme running an infection screen in novel KO strains. He has a particular interest in using genomics to study host/pathogens interactions, in particular using Salmonella enteric serovar Typhi, the cause of typhoid, as a model. He has extensive experience working both in industry and in academia. Before moving to the WTSI he was the Director of the Centre for Molecular Microbiology and Infection at the Imperial College London and a Professor of Physiological Biochemistry. There he was responsible for securing multi-million pound funding for a new building in Kensington and providing infrastructure for the science.
Throughout his career Gordon has served as a referee, advisor and consultant for numerous respected institutions, universities, boards, committees other and organizations. He is a Trustee of the International Vaccine Institute in Korea and in 2002 he was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He graduated with a degree and received his Ph.D. from the University of Sussex and conducted postdoctoral studies at the University of Washington (Seattle) in the laboratory of Professor Stanley Falkow. He worked for over ten years in industry developing vaccines and novel drugs at an internationally renowned multinational company and has participated in early and late clinical studies on several vaccines. He is an expert in vaccinology/pathogenic mechanisms, specialising on the immunology of mucosal vaccines and molecular basis of infection.
A drinks reception will take place following the lecture.