Meet the Editorial Team

Professor Mark Peakman
Editor in Chief

Mark Peakman is Professor of Clinical Immunology at King's College London, School of Medicine. He qualified in Medicine and then conducted PhD studies on the T cell autoimmune response in Type 1 diabetes, which has become his enduring research interest. He now oversees a research group in the Department of Immunobiology at King's, with a particular focus on defining the molecular targets of autoreactive T cells in autoimmune diseases, and using antigen-specific immune modulation in an attempt to combat the loss of tolerance that underlies these syndromes.

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Dr Danny Douek
Associate Editor

Danny Douek is Chief of the Human Immunology Section at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH. He received his Medical Degree from the Universities of Oxford and London, and then a PhD in Immunology from the University of London. He is a widely published author in the field of human immunology and currently the main focus of his laboratory is the pathogenesis of HIV infection.

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Dr Matthias von Herrath
Associate Editor

Matthias von Herrath and his lab are pursuing an elusive goal - a cure for type 1 diabetes. Most recently, in association with LIAI researcher Damien Bresson, this has involved the development of a combination therapy that is showing significant promise against type 1 diabetes, when caught in the early stages.

Dr. von Herrath also focuses his research on controlling chronic virus infections. His novel approach, which involves blocking a key messenger molecule in the immune system, the IL-10 receptor, is showing great promise in animal studies as a possible means to treat these infections. The finding has particular relevance for hepatitis C, but may also be applicable to AIDS, cytomegalovirus and other chronic virus infections.

A major theme that ties these two research areas together is the induction and characterization of antigen-specific Tregs and their testing.

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Professor Marina Botto
Associate Editor

Marina Botto is Professor of Rheumatology in the Faculty of Medicine of Imperial College London. The Faculty is one of Europe's largest medical institutions and was recently ranked 4th in world for biomedicine. Professor Botto's research focuses on complement biology and systemic autoimmunity. Over the years she has developed several animal models of complement deficiency which have helped understanding of the role of complement in SLE and renal diseases