Professor Geoffrey L Smith FRS

Geoffrey Smith was appointed Professor of Virology and a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow at Imperial College London in 2000. He is head of the Section of Virology (since 2002) and Head of the Division of Infectious Diseases that was created in 2009. The Division has 6 sections, Virology, Microbiology, Infectious Diseases, Paediatrics, Immunology and Infectious Disease Immunology, with a total of 350 staff spread across 4 campuses.

Professor Smith graduated in Biochemistry and Microbiology from the University of Leeds in 1977 and obtained his PhD in 1981 at the National Institute for Medical Research, Mill Hill, London. As a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health, USA (1981-84) he developed vaccinia virus as an expression vector and pioneered the use of genetically engineered viruses as live vaccines. He continued working with poxviruses after returning to UK, first in Cambridge (1985-89), then in Oxford (1989-2000) and now at Imperial College London. His research group studies the interactions of poxviruses (particularly vaccinia virus) with the host cell and immune system.

Professor Smith is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Institute of Biology. He is President-Elect of the International Union of Microbiological Societies, Chairman of the WHO Advisory Committee for Variola Virus (smallpox) Research, Chairman of the Royal Society Committee for Scientific Aspects of International Security, a Governor of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine and a member of Royal Society Science Policy Advisory Group. In 2005 he was awarded the Feldberg Foundation Prize in Medical and Biological Science to promote Anglo-German Friendship and in 2009 he was elected a Founding Member of the European Academy of Microbiology.