I am Professor of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology in the Division of Clinical Medicine in the School of Medicine and Public Health at the University of Sheffield. My work employs molecular cell biology techniques to address questions relating to the regulation, structure, expression and function of epithelial genes from the respiratory tract in its widest sense. This work also involves studies of epithelial cell specific differentiation and understanding the role of distinct stem/basal cells in this process.

My basic science research has also moved into a more translational direction and I also work on the role of innate immune defence molecules in a number of diseases of the human respiratory tract as well as epithelial responses in infectious disease in the airways. It has also led to new avenues of work on epithelial responses in nasopharyngeal infections and in otitis media and latterly to more applied studies on the biology of multiciliogenesis, an interest of mine since working with FOXJ1 as a post-doc in St Louis.

I also maintain an interest in comparative genomics and gene evolution. Currently, I am somewhat fixated by gene evolution in Cetaceans and marsupials/monotremes!

I have recently become the Science Editor of the Biochemist magazine published by The Biochemical Society. This allows me to keep involved with more general scientific communications.