Conference 2021 Keynote speaker

Tom Wilkinson, Ph.D.

Professor & Honorary Consultant Respiratory Medicine

Clinical and Experimental Sciences

Southampton University Faculty of Medicine

Talk title: Developing New Treatments for COVID-19: Focus on Inhaled Interferon-ß

Professor Tom Wilkinson is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Southampton, Faculty of Medicine and Honorary Consultant at University Hospitals Southampton. He trained at the University of Cambridge and Barts and the London School of Medicine and completed his PhD at UCL studying disease mechanisms driving Infective Exacerbations of COPD. He is lead of the Southampton COPD research group, and Airways disease research theme lead for the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre in Nutrition and Respiratory Medicine. His research seeks to improve understanding of the mechanisms which drive susceptibility to respiratory infections and exacerbations in patients with chronic lung disease, and to develop new vaccines and therapies to impact on these. Tom has taken these mechanistic discoveries through translation into new treatments. He was co-chair of the British Thoracic Society Home Oxygen Guidelines standards of care committee, contributed to the national nutritional guidance for COPD, is associate editor for the journal Thorax and is co-founder of the health technology company myMHealth. He has published over 100 peer reviewed papers and reviews on the topics of airways disease, exacerbations and airway immunology. His work has been recognised by National and International Awards including the Maurizio Vignola award for Innovation in Respiratory Medicine in Europe by the ERS.