Scientific Advisers

Toby Maher is British Lung Foundation Chair in Respiratory Research and Professor of Interstitial Lung Disease at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London, UK. He holds a prestigious National Institute of Health Research Clinician Scientist Fellowship and is also Director of Respiratory Research and a consultant physician at the Royal Brompton Hospital, London. His research interests include biomarker discovery, the lung microbiome and host immune response in the pathogenesis of IPF, and clinical trials in fibrotic lung disease. He has been actively involved in the running of over 45 trials in fibrotic lung disease.

Prof. Maher is an associate editor for the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. He is on the editorial board of the European Respiratory Journal and European Respiratory Review as well as the International Advisory Board for Lancet Respiratory Medicine. He has authored over 200 papers and book chapters on IPF and ILD.

Maureen Horton is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Interstitial Lung Disease Clinic.  Her research focuses on deciphering the immunological mechanisms that promote lung inflammation and fibrosis, examining the ability of immunotherapy and immunometabolic therapy to reverse lung inflammation and fibrosis and treat chronic cough in patents suffering with lung fibrosis.

Joanna Porter is a Professor in the Department of Medicine at UCL and a Consultant in Respiratory and General Medicine. She is the Clinical Lead for Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) at UCLH and Medical Director of the UCL partners ILD Consortium, and of the Breathing Matters Charity for patients with ILD.

Joanna studied Medicine and Pharmacology at Cambridge University followed by clinical studies at Oxford University Medical School.  She went on to train in respiratory and intensive care medicine at the Brompton, St George’s, and St Thomas’  hospitals, before completing her respiratory training at UCLH.  Joanna was awarded a PhD for her work in inflammation at UCL as an MRC Clinical Fellow and went on to be awarded a Wellcome Postdoctoral Clinical Fellowship at UCL.

Her research is in the area of inflammatory lung disease; she heads the Leukocyte Trafficking Laboratory at UCL in the Centre for Inflammation and Tissue Repair (CITR) and has a translational research interest in novel imaging techniques, biomarkers and therapies in ILD and other inflammatory lung diseases

Surinder Birring is Professor of Respiratory Medicine and Consultant Respiratory Physician at King’s College Hospital, London (specialist clinics in ILD, Cough and Sarcoidosis). His research focuses on the assessment and treatment of cough and the development of disease specific quality of life measures. As a British Lung Foundation Fellow in 2001, he studied the cellular mechanisms of unexplained cough and continued his work as a Senior Fellow in Sydney in 2006. He has published over 200 papers, reviews and book chapters and is author of American, British and European Cough clinical guidelines. He has been the chief investigator of numerous multi-centre clinical trials. His team developed the widely used quality of life questionnaires, Leicester Cough Questionnaire, King’s Brief Interstitial Lung Disease (KBILD) and King’s Sarcoidosis Questionnaires (KSQ). Dr Birring is also co-developer of the Leicester Cough Monitor.