ProfessorClare Lloyd

Clare Lloyd completed both her BSc and PhD degrees in Immunology at King's College London. She was awarded a Junior Research Fellowship from the National Kidney Research Fund at the United Medical and Dental Schools at Guy's Hospital to study the immune response associated with mouse models of glomerulonephritis. Thereafter she moved to the US to take up a Postdoctoral position jointly with Dr Jose-Carlos Gutierrez Ramos at Harvard University and Professor David Salant at Boston University Medical Center.

Professor Lloyd developed a mouse model of chronic inflammatory glomerulonephritis in order to study the role of infiltrating inflammatory cells in renal fibrosis. While in Dr Guteirrez-Ramos' laboratory she developed an interest in the molecular mechanisms of cell recruitment and was involved in the cloning and in vivo characterisation of several novel chemokines. She moved to Millennium Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, USA where her role was to develop models and systems to functionally characterise novel genes of unknown function.

Professor Lloyd moved back to the UK to establish a research group at Imperial College in 1999 after being awarded a Wellcome Senior Fellow in Basic Biomedical Sciences. Her group has developed models of chronic allergic inflammation and outlined roles for cells and molecules involved in the development and regulation of pulmonary inflammation, airway hyperreactivity and airway remodelling. Her Fellowship was successfully renewed both in 2004 and 2010 and she was awarded a Personal Chair in Respiratory Immunology in 2006.

Current projects are focused on the mechanisms underlying the regulation and development of allergen induced airway inflammation and remodelling; development of allergic inflammation and remodelling in neonates; effects of viral exacerbations on airway inflammation and remodelling. The overall goal of the work is to investigate epithelial-immune interactions underlying development and resolution of allergic airway inflammation, and we are paticularly focused on how genetics and the external environment influence these interactions. An important recent focus of Clare's research has been the investigation of the development of allergic immunity in early life, working closely with the Department of Paediatrics at the Royal Brompton Hospital in studying children with severe asthma.

This collaboration has resulted in the development of models of maternal and neonatal allergen exposure and we integrate these in vivo models with in vitro culture systems using pulmonary cells isolated from children in order to investigate pathways and mechanisms leading to allergic remodelling and inflammation in early life.

Professor Lloyd is a PI in the Medical Research Council/Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma and in the Wellcome Trust funded Centre for Respiratory Infection. She is also a PI in the Wellcome Trust funded 3i Consortium which is immunophenotyping mutant mice generated by the Sanger Centre with the aim of discovering novel genes involved in common immunological diseases.

Professor Lloyd has served on the research committees of Asthma UK and the British Heart and Lung Foundation, and the Wellcome Trust Immunology and Infectious Disease funding committee, and others internationally in Ireland, Findland and Portugal.

Professor Lloyd makes important contributions to management at College and Institute Levels, including chairing the BioServices Operations Committee (2011-2014) and becoming the institute's first Divisional Lead for Women -promoting the interests and careers of female scientists (2008-2014). In 2009 she led the NHLI Athena application, leading to a Silver Swan Award- the first Silver award to a Medical department in the country- this award was renewed in 2014. Her commitment to research training was recognised recently by award of the Rectors Medal for Excellence in Research Supervision.

Airway Inflammation and Remodelling

Publications: Google Scholar