Biography
Professor Brightling’s first degree was in Pharmacology at Imperial College
London. He undertook his medical training at St Marys and Guys Hospital
London; was a specialist registrar in Leicester from 1997; spent 3 months in
Sydney Australia as a visiting clinical fellow and completed his specialist
training in respiratory medicine in 2004. Whilst a medical student he published
his first paper on asthma whilst working part-time in the Asthma Research
group at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital. As
a registrar he immediately displayed a keen interest and aptitude for research
and undertook a PhD supervised by Professor Ian Pavord. He was awarded
his first grant in his first year as a clinical research fellow, which funded his
PhD project. His research is focussed on understanding the pathophysiology
and improving the clinical management of airway disease. In particular he has
major interests in the utilisation of inflammatory markers in the management
of airway diseases and the role of mast cell-airway smooth muscle
interactions in asthma. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers
including 6 papers in the New England Journal and the Lancet. He has been
awarded external grant funding from Wellcome, MRC, Department of Health,
Asthma UK, European Union, and industry totalling over £5million. He
remains self-funded through clinical fellowships having gained a Department
of Health Clinical Fellowship and now a prestigious Wellcome Senior Clinical
Fellowship. This is the first senior clinical fellowship to be awarded to a
clinician in Leicester. His success has also be recognised with over 10
regional and national postgraduate research prizes including the Frank May
Award and he is regularly invited to speak at international meetings. He now
runs a vibrant research group of over 15 researchers including clinical fellows,
research nurses, postdoctoral researchers, technicians and PhD students.
Four of his students have already been awarded PhDs. He is a member of the
British Thoracic Society guideline committee, the American and European
Respiratory Society severe asthma guideline group and the World Health
Organisation severe asthma strategy group. He is an associate editor for the
international respiratory journal Chest and is on the editorial board of other
specialist respiratory journals. In spite of his academic success he says that
his greatest achievement was meeting Michelle and being a father to Ellen,
Joe, Isobel and Ed.