Prof Tak
Hong Lee
Professor of clinical
medicine, King’s College
London, UK
Dr Tak Hong
Lee is a Professor and the
Asthma UK Chair of Allergy
and Respiratory Medicine
since 1988. He became the
Director of the MRC and
Asthma UK Centre in the
Allergic Mechanisms of
Asthma (www.asthma-allergy.ac.uk)
in 2005. One of the Centre’s
main purposes is to speed up
the process of translating
fundamental discoveries into
new treatments for patients.
Since the Centre was
established it has grown
from 15 senior scientists to
38 with current grants
totaling £66 million. The
National Institute for
Health Research
Comprehensive Biomedical
Research Centre at Guy’s and
St Thomas’ NHS Foundation
Trust and King’s College
London is also funding key
areas of the Centre’s work
and has recently awarded
Professor Lee, a grant of
£1.2 million to investigate
the link between pollution
and asthma.
Professor Lee
is also head of the Division
of Asthma, Allergy and Lung
Biology, part of the King's
College London School of
Medicine. Professor Lee
teaches medical students,
postgraduates and supervises
PhD students in addition to
overseeing an
internationally competitive
research programme spanning
from babies to adulthood and
addressing key questions
around infections,
inflammation, food allergies
and developing new immune
therapies. His specific
interests are in the
mechanisms of severe types
of asthma and why some of
these patients do not
respond well to treatment.
The objective of his
research is to inform
development of new
treatments and approaches to
prevention. His work is
guided by national health
priorities and addresses
unresolved questions in
asthma research for patient
benefit.
He is an
honorary consultant
physician at Guy's and St
Thomas' Foundation NHS
Trust, where he is director
of the NHS Allergy Service.
He was recently appointed as
one of the first 100 Senior
Investigators of the newly
created National Institute
of Health Research. He has
published over 400 research
papers on asthma and allergy
as is an ISI Highly Cited
Author.
He was
President of British Society
for Allergy and Clinical
Immunology and Chairman of
the Joint Committee for
Immunology and Allergy for
Royal Colleges of Physicians
and Pathologists. He is a
Fellow of the Academy of
Medical Sciences and was
granted fellowship to King’s
College London in 2007.
Professor Lee
graduated from Cambridge
University with a First
Class Honours degree and,
following a period of
clinical and research
training in the UK, he was
awarded a scholarship to
study at Harvard Medical
School, Boston, USA.