Asthma and the holobiont

In this talk Professor William Cookson discusses how airway microbial communities may interact with the airway mucosa to maintain health to resist infection.

The exemplar of asthma is used to explore how disordered communities predispose to catastrophic inflammatory responses to apparently trivial virus infections.

• To gain understanding of viruses and exacerbations, alongside the considerations
• To gain knowledge on treatment and guidelines of asthma and COPD exacerbations
• To review genes and environment associated with asthma

Professor William Cookson is a professor of genomic medicine, and an honorary consultant at Royal Brompton Hospitals and Imperial College London, and is Head of Asmarley Center for Genomic Medicine at the National Heart and Lung institute.

In 2011, Professor Cookson won a Joint Wellcome Senior Award with Professor Miriam Moffat, and two years later in 2013, he was elected to the College Senior Investigators.