Fellow

Julian Hopkin has a distinguished reputation for basic and clinical research in respiratory medicine and allergy. His early work was in the field of pneumocystis carinii which at the time was one of the major problems facing transplant programmes and individuals infected with HIV. His group developed a sensitive and specific DNA assay that enabled rapid diagnosis in sputum samples. However he is now best known as an international authority on the genetics of asthma and has made important and original discoveries in this area, most notably by discovering genetic variants within the Th-2 immune signalling pathway that reproducibly predict asthma and allergy in diverse populations. His demonstration that infections with mycobacteria or helminth are protective against asthma and atopy go some way towards explaining the low incidence of atopy in the third world where such infections are common. Professor Hopkin has won international acclaim, culminating in the award of the Daiwa-Adrian Prize, for his work on the genetics of asthma. He is a Visiting Professor at Universities in Japan and Italy. In 1999 he became Professor of Medicine in Swansea and then Founding Director of the Swansea Clinical School, a role that he has fulfilled with great success, an accolade to his considerable political and organisational skills. Importantly, he has made Clinical Science a priority in the developments at Swansea.