ProfessorAdnan Custovic, FMedSci

Adnan Custovic is Professor of Paediatric Allergy at Imperial College London, where he leads the Paediatric Allergy Group within the Centre for Paediatrics and Child Health, and is an Honorary Consultant at St Mary’s Hospital. He founded the Frankland–Kay Centre for Allergy at the National Heart and Lung Institute and currently serves as its Director. He is also a Director of the Imperial College London / Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust World Allergy Organization (WAO) Centre of Excellence.

He trained in paediatrics and allergy in Sarajevo and Manchester, completing an MSc, MD (Gold Medal), and PhD. Following an Asthma UK Senior Research Fellowship, he was appointed Reader (2000) and Professor of Allergy (2002) at the University of Manchester, where he later served as Centre Lead for Respiratory Medicine in the Institute of Translational Medicine.

Professor Custovic’s research focuses on the origins, mechanisms, and prevention of asthma and allergic diseases across the life course, with strong emphasis on translation into clinical practice. His work has informed national and international guidelines on asthma prevention and management and has significantly influenced clinical approaches to food allergy. His demonstration that IgE responses to peanut component Ara h 2 more accurately predict true peanut allergy helped establish component-resolved diagnostics in routine care.

He has been a pioneer in applying data-driven approaches, including machine learning, to understand complex allergic disease phenotypes. He led the MRC-funded STELAR/UNICORN consortia, integrating UK birth cohorts with advanced analytics, leading to the identification of distinct developmental trajectories of asthma, allergy, and lung function.

He co-leads the programme “Drivers, determinants and early detection of respiratory disease” within the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre.

He was elected Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences (2020), member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2019), and Honorary Member of the Croatian Academy of Medical Sciences (2024). He is a Fellow of EAACI (2023), an NIHR Senior Investigator (2023), and a Fellow of the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland (2021). His awards include the European Respiratory Society Gold Medal in Asthma (2015) and the BSACI William Frankland Medal (2013).

Professor Custovic serves as Member-at-Large of the EAACI Executive Committee (2026–2028). He previously served on the WAO Board of Directors (2020–2024) and has held leadership roles in BSACI and EAACI. He contributes to national and international advisory and funding panels, including the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowships and the Academy of Medical Sciences.

He is Editor-in-Chief of Paediatric Allergy and Immunology and has previously served as Associate Editor of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and on the International Advisory Board of The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health.

He has supervised 23 doctoral students and held honorary professorships in Manchester, Cape Town, Singapore, and Zagreb.