Anti-Inflammatory Approaches
| Student | University of Glasgow Supervisors | Astra Zeneca Supervisor |
| Lewis Rodgers |
Dr Nisha Kurian |
Dr Carl Goodyear
Director, GLAZgo Discovery Centre
Senior Lecturer, Institute of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation
University of Glasgow
Dr Carl Goodyear studied at the University of Glasgow and Glasgow Caledonian University, gaining a BSc with honours in Molecular Biology in 1996 and a PhD in Molecular Immunology in 1999. Upon completing his PhD, Dr Goodyear moved to the US and worked in the Department of Medicine at the University of California at San Diego where he held the position of Assistant Professor. During this period Dr Goodyear was awarded a Cancer Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship, became a National Blood Foundation Scholar, and received a number of awards including the National Blood Foundation David B. Pall Prize for Innovative Research in Transfusion Medicine and an Arthritis Foundation Investigator Award. In 2006 he returned to work in the UK at the Institute of Infection Immunity and Inflammation in the University of Glasgow. He was awarded a prestigious Arthritis Research UK Fellowship and shortly after became a Senior Lecturer. Dr Goodyear’s research has continued to gain awards such as the Inaugural Medical Research Scotland Vipiana Award.
Dr Goodyear’s research group is currently focused on understanding immunopathogenesis of disease (i.e., Rheumatoid Arthritis, Osteoarthritis & Multiple Myeloma) and translating this knowledge into viable therapeutic agents for patients. In parallel, Dr. Goodyear also leads a Translational Immunology programme, which provides the critical interface between clinical and basic science.
Professor Iain McInnes
Professor Iain McInnes studied medicine at the University of Glasgow and graduated with honours in 1989 before training in internal medicine and rheumatology. He completed his membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) in 1992 and became a fellow (FRCP) in 2003. He completed his PhD and post-doctoral studies via fellowships from the Wellcome Trust, the Arthritis Research Campaign (ARC, UK) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) Fogarty Fellowship Programme in both Glasgow and Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Professor McInnes’ research interests include understanding the role of cytokines in inflammatory synovitis. He leads a trials unit specialising in the use of biologic agents in early clinical trials in inflammatory arthritis. Professor McInnes has published widely in the areas of immunobiology and rheumatology, and is an Associate Editor of the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases and a member of the executive Editorial Board of European Journal of Immunology. His work, together with that of his colleagues at the University of Glasgow, has been recognised in receipt of many prizes and lectureships including the Michael Mason Prize 2001 from the British Society for Rheumatology, the Albrecht Hasinger Lectureship 2002, the Nana Svartz Lectureship 2008, and the Dunlop Dotteridge Lectureship for the Canadian Rheumatology Association in 2010. He gave the BSR Droitwich Lecture in 2012, and the Gerald Weissmann Lecture in Rheumatology in New York in 2013. A previous Chairman of the EULAR Scientific Committee and ESCCA, he is now Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the European Rheumatology Research Foundation. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2008 and in 2012 was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Dr Michael Barrett
Dr Barrett's current research focuses on understanding how drugs work against parasites and how parasites become resistant to drugs. In the case of African trypanosomiasis, transport related phenomena have been central and a major research area has been associated with understanding drug resistance. This has led to the discovery of new transporters involved in uptake of melaminophenylarsenical and diamidine drugs and eflornithine. In Leishmania changes in drug uptake have also been identified for paromomycin, pentamidine and amphotericin B in selection of drug resistance. Prof Barrett chairs the Kinetoplastids Drug efficacy working group at the World Health Organisation. Since many drugs work at the level of interference with metabolism he has also pioneered work into biochemistry of parasites, identifying several drug targets and also founded the Scottish Metabolomics facility which is now able to report on metabolomics data outputs in any system, and is now part of the Glasgow Polyomics Facility which is involved in collecting metabolomics, genomics and proteomics data and analysing the data within an active bioinformatics hub. Prof Barrett is also interested in developing new screens for drugs, including an in vivo imaging model to determine whether drugs act in stage 2 human African trypanosomiasis, and is Director of New Projects at the Consortium of Parasitic Drug Development. He also is involved in scientific outreach, appearing on radio, television and writing frequently in magazines and newspapers on topics in tropical medicine and application of Omics research.
Scientific Advisory board of "Developing World Health"
Dr Nisha Kurian
Dr Nisha Kurian completed her PhD studies in 2006 at the University of Leicester investigating cross talk between differentially coupled GPCRs under the supervision of Prof Andrew Tobin & Dr Gary Willars. Following 2 postdoctoral roles based at the University of Nottingham, she moved to Sweden to join AstraZeneca in 2011. Since starting her work within the Respiratory, Inflammation & Autoimmunity iMed in AstraZeneca, Nisha has been involved in all phases of the drug discovery process, from supporting early target ideas to candidate drug selection. Furthermore, she has been supporting projects in clinical development with biological data to help differentiate AstraZeneca medicine from others. Nisha’s current research focus is around exploring inflammatory pathways and signaling of various lung-resident innate immune cells & translating these findings into viable drug targeting strategies.