Peter is an immunologist who is interested in understanding how immune responses to Aspergillus, a fungal human pathogen that is ubiquitous in the environment, trigger asthma and potentially severe fungal allergic disease in the lung. Peter’s research uses a range of approaches in mouse models and patient-derived samples to determine how dendritic cells, a key population of immune cells that are key for activating inflammation, act upon exposure to Aspergillus spores and mediate allergic disease. A greater understanding of these events is urgently needed to allow the development of new therapeutics designed to stop the immune response reacting against the Aspergillus spores and so dampen and prevent anti-fungal allergic disease.

Peter obtained a BSc (Hons) in Genetics from the University of York, which included an industrial year working at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew London. He then undertook a PhD at the University of York focusing on how helminth infection skews immune events in the skin. After completing his PhD in 2009, he trained as a post doc at the University of Edinburgh with Andrew MacDonald investigating the impact of type-2 immunity on innate cells, particularly DCs. He relocated with the laboratory to the Manchester Collaborative Centre for Inflammation Research (MCCIR) in 2013 and discovered novel mechanisms that DCs utilise to drive allergic type-2 inflammation. In 2016 he was awarded the Dean’s Prize to help establish a research group to unravel why exposure to fungi in the airways causes immune cells to mediate chronic allergic inflammation.

Twitter: @drpetercook

Email: [email protected]