ProfessorFan Chung

Fan Chung is Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Head of Experimental Studies Medicine at National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London, and is Consultant Physician at the Royal Brompton & Harefield NHS Trust, London.

His current interests are focused on the role of airway smooth muscle and effects of oxidant stress on muscle function, on the energetics of airway smooth muscle function and on the mechanisms underlying corticosteroid resistance. He is also researching on the impact of environmental pollution and nanoparticles on the lungs and in lung disease. The translational aspects of this work relates to the chronic airflow obstruction and inflammation seen in asthma and COPD and finding new treatments, particularly related to antioxidant and anti-inflammatory therapies. He has also an interest in the cough hypersensitivity syndrome and new antitussives.

Professor Chung holds research grants from the Medical Research Council UK, EU Innovative Medicines Initiative, National Environmental Research Council (UK), Asthma UK and the NIH/National Institute for Environmental and Health Sciences.

Professor Chung is a Senior Investigator of the UK National Institute for Health Research. He is co-leader of the IMI-funded EU/EFPIA UBIOPRED project on Systems Biology of severe asthma. He currently heads the Asthma Consortium of the Biomedical Research Unit of the Royal Brompton Hospital. Professor Chung is an investigator in the MRC/Asthma UK Centre in Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma at Imperial/Kings Colleges, a co-leader of the European consortium UBIOPRED on mechanisms of severe asthma, an investigator of the MRC-EPA Environment & Health Centre at Imperial/Kings Colleges.

He currently serves on the editorial boards of several respiratory and pharmacological journals including Respirology, Lancet Respiratory Medicine & European Journal of Pharmacology. He is a founding co-Editor of COUGH.

Professor Chung trained in internal and respiratory medicine at the Hammersmith Hospital, Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, and Charing Cross Hospital, London. He did postdoctoral training at the Cardiovascular Research Institute, University of California San Francisco before joining the National Heart & Lung Institute and the Royal Brompton Hospital.

Clip from Phoenix TV programme on air pollution. Featuring interviews with NHLI's Professor Fan Chung & Professor Paul Cullinan on their Oxford Street study.