Professor Neil A.R. Gow
Professor of Genomic Evolution at the Conway Institute, School of Medicine, University College Dublin
Talk Title
Structure of fungal cell wall immune epitopes: the origins of immunity
Biography
Professor Gow’s research speciality is the study of medically important fungi that cause more than a million life-threatening infections each year. In particular, his group studies the structure and function of the fungal cell wall in relation growth, morphogenesis and as a target for immune recognition and the development of antifungal drugs. He is a founding member of MRC Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Exeter, UK. He has served as President of the British Mycological Society, the International Society for Human and Animal Mycology, the Microbiology Society and the British Society for Medical Mycology, and currently the European Confederation of Medical Mycology, and has been elected as a FAAM, FRS, FRSE and FMedSci. Until recently he was Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Impact at the University of Exeter, which has the one of the most rapidly growing research bases in the UK. There he led the research and business engagement strategies for the University. He has since returned to full time research in fungal cell wall biology.