Home| Professor of Immunology |
| Dean for Research, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry |
Contact details:
| Tel: | +44 20 7882 2331 |
| Fax: | +44 20 7882 2194 |
| Email: | t.t.macdonald@qmul.ac.uk |
| Address: | Centre for Immunology and Infectious Disease, |
Biography
Tom MacDonald received a PhD in immunology from Glasgow in 1976 and then did a post-doc at the Trudeau Institute in upstate New York. In 1978 he was appointed as an assistant professor at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and received tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in 1983. In 1984 he left Philadelphia and worked at Merck and Co for a year, before returning to Bart's Medical College in 1985. In 1986 he was appointed a Wellcome Trust Senior Lecturer at Bart's (till 1994), was promoted to reader in 1989, and given a personal chair at the University of London in 1991. In 2000 he moved to Southampton medical school to head up the Division of Infection, Inflammation and Repair and then in 2005 he returned to Barts and the London as Professor of Immunology and Dean for Research in the Medical and Dental School. He has over 400 publications, mostly on how inappropriate immune reactions cause disease in the human gut. He was awarded FRCPath in 1995 and FMedSci in 2002 on the basis of his published works.
Research Activity
Tom MacDonald's continuing research interests are in immunology and inflammation in the human gastrointestinal tract. Ongoing research projects include identifying novel pathways which can block T cell activation and cytokine production in IBD; regulation of matrix metalloproteinases in inflamed bowel by TGF beta; control of TGF beta signalling in IBD by Smad7; the function and modulation of Peyer's patch dendritic cells by bacterial products (pathogens and non-pathogens); the role if IL-21 and IL-25 in gut inflammation, and the role of T-bet in regulating cytokine production by dendritic cells. In more basic studies he continues to use Citrobacter rodentium infection in mice as a model to modulation of host immunity by this pathogen and the way in which the host controls the inflammatory response to this pathogen ( in collaboration with Gad Frankel). Outside Barts and the London he has a wide range of research-associated activity. He has been/is a member of PSCM panel at MRC (2007-2011), MRC Patient Cohort Panel ( 2009-11), Netherlands Genomic Initiative (2004-present), INSERM GI panel, BBSRC Agri-Food panel (2002-2005), BBSRC REI panel (2003-4), BBSRC Institute Review panels (2005, 2006) and was vice-chairman of the governing body of the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen (2002-2008). He was associate editor of Gut ( 1997-2003), on the editorial board of Gastroenterology (2001-2006) and is a section editor of Inflammatory Bowel Disease and Mucosal Immunology. He was the co-chair of the 14th International Congress of Mucosal Immunology in Boston and was elected President of the Society (2009-2011). In 2008 he received the Presidents Medal of the British Society for Gastroenterology for his contribution to GI research. He regularly reviews GI immunology/inflammation related work for Nature, Nature Medicine, Science and J Clin Invest. His work is currently funded by MRC and the European Union as well as other small charities.
Key Publications
• MacDonald TT, Monteleone G 2005 Immunity, Inflammation and Allergy in the Gut. Science 307:1920-25.
• Caruso R, Sarra M, Stolfi C, Rizzo A, Fina D, Fantini MC, Pallone F, MacDonald TT, Monteleone G. 2009 Interleukin-25 inhibits interleukin-12 production and Th1 cell-driven inflammation in the gut. Gastro 136: 2270-9.
• Di Sabatino A, Rovedatti L, Kaur R, Spencer JP, Brown JT, Morisset VD, Biancheri P, Leakey NA, Wilde JI, Scott L, Corazza GR, Lee K, Sengupta N, Knowles CH, Gunthorpe MJ, McLean PG, MacDonald TT, Kruidenier L. 2009 Targeting gut T cell Ca2+ release-activated Ca2+ channels inhibits T cell cytokine production and T-box transcription factor T-bet in inflammatory bowel disease. J Immunol. 183:3454-62. ( Macdonald and Kruidenier joint last authors)
• Caruso R, Botti E , Sarra M, Esposito M, Stolfi C, Diluvio L, Giustizieri ML, Mazzotta A, Campione E, MacDonald TT, Chimenti S, Pallone F, Costanzo A, Monteleone G. 2009 Involvement of IL-21 in the epidermal hyperplasia of psoriasis. Nature Medicine 15:1013-5.
• Vossenkämper A, Marchès O, Fairclough PD, Warnes G, Stagg AJ, Lindsay JO, Evans PC, Luong LA, Croft NM, Naik S, Frankel G, MacDonald TT. 2010 Inhibition of NF-{kappa}B Signaling in Human Dendritic Cells by the Enteropathogenic Escherichia coli Effector Protein NleE. J Immunol. 185:4118-4127.
• MacDonald TT Inside the microbial and immune labyrinth: totally gutted. Nat Med. 2010; 16:1194-5
