Professor Tracy Hussell

Tracy Hussell completed her PhD at University College London where she identified Helicobacter pylori as an aetiological agent in human gut lymphomas. Since then she has developed an active research program in the field of mucosal immunology and infectious disease.

After her PhD Professor Hussell moved to Respiratory Medicine at St Mary's Hospital to study immunity and pathology to respiratory syncytial virus in mouse models. In 1998 she accepted a lectureship in the Centre for Molecular Microbiology and Infection (CMMI) at Imperial College led by Professors Gordon Dougan and Douglas Young. She was subsequently awarded a career development fellowship by the Medical Research Council and has been funded extensively by them since.

Professor Hussell was awarded a Personal Chair in inflammatory disease in 2006 and has developed a vibrant research group studying immunity, pathology and vaccination to influenza virus infection with a special interest in the secondary bacterial complications that ensure. The group has many collaborators World Wide in the field of bacterial pneumonia and sepsis following influenza including:

• Professors Bill Cookson and Miriam Moffatt; the impact of influenza on commensal microorganisms in the upper and lower respiratory tract
• Profs John Brundage and Denis Shank; immune correlates with pandemic influenza infection
• Professor Neil Barclay Jonathon Sedgwick; the role of CD200 and its receptor in lung immune homeostasis and infection.
• Professor Kendal Smith; New strategies to prevent death from Influenza
  

Professor Hussell is a principal investigator in the Medical Research Council/Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma and in the Wellcome Trust funded Centre for Respiratory Infection. Current projects are supported by the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, NIH, the European Union and collaboration with several Biotechnology companies in the UK and USA.

Professor Hussell is a member of the research committee for Asthma UK and previously sat on the research funding committee for the Arthritis Campaign. She is currently the secretary for the Clinical Immunology and Allergy Section of the Royal Society of Medicine and Education Secretary and Trustee of the British Society for Immunology.