Contact details

Professor Sebastian L Johnston

Asthma UK Clinical Chair
National Heart & Lung Institute

Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 3764
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Professor Sebastian L Johnston

Sebastian Johnston is Professor of Respiratory Medicine & Allergy at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, and Honorary Consultant Physician in Respiratory Medicine & Allergy at St Mary’s Hospital, Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust, London. He is Director of the MRC & Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma, a Principal Investigator in the Wellcome Trust Centre for Respiratory Infection at Imperial College London and is the Respiratory Theme leader for the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust.

He is an NIHR Senior Investigator, he holds the only Asthma UK Clinical Professorship and is the only Adult Respiratory Researcher to hold a European Research Council Advanced Investigator Grant. He is past Chairman of the Infection Groups in both the European Respiratory Society and the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and of the Asthma Section, European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

He was Editor of Thorax 2002-2010, is Associate Editor of 3 Respiratory/Allergy Journals and the European Journal of Clinical Investigation and serves on the Editorial Boards of several other respiratory and allergy journals. He has served on several MRC and NIH panels and currently serves on the European Research Council Physiology, Pathophysiology & Endocrinology Board. He receives grant support from the European Research Council (Advanced Research Grant of €2.5m), the MRC (three current grants of ~£1m), the Wellcome Trust (Centre Grant), Asthma UK, British Lung Foundation (Programme Grant), BMA, ERS, EAACI and NIH.

He is the Principal Investigator on the MRC/GSK Strategic Alliance – a ~£6M venture aiming discover novel mechanisms in asthma exacerbations. Notable discoveries that have emerged from his past work include establishing the viral aetiology of asthma exacerbations (BMJ x5, Lancet), demonstrating that asthmatics are more susceptible to rhinovirus infection than normal individuals (Lancet, PNAS), discovering novel mechanisms of susceptibility to virus infection in asthma (JEM, Nature Med and PNAS) and describing a novel and effective treatment approach for acute exacerbations of asthma (NEJM).

His work has led to the publishing of 8 patents, the licensing of these patents to industry and to completion of Phase I clinical studies on the use of IFN-beta for treatment of acute exacerbations of asthma. A proof of concept Phase II study has just completed recruitment and results are expect Q1 2012.

Selected Publications