Rate My Professor Clare Lloyd

Professor Clare Lloyd is a Professor of Respiratory Immunology, Interim Head of the National Heart and Lung Institute, and Vice Dean for Institutional Affairs in the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. She earned her BSc (Hons) in Immunology in 1987 and PhD in Immunology in 1991 from King's College London, with a thesis on mechanisms of nephritis during murine malarial infections. After her doctorate, she received a Junior Research Fellowship from the National Kidney Research Fund at Guy's Hospital to investigate immune responses in mouse models of glomerulonephritis. She then conducted postdoctoral research jointly at Harvard University with Jose-Carlos Gutierrez Ramos and at Boston University Medical Center with David Salant, developing a mouse model of chronic inflammatory glomerulonephritis. Subsequently, she joined Millennium Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, USA, to develop models and systems for functionally characterizing novel genes of unknown function. In 1999, she established her research group at Imperial College London as a Wellcome Senior Fellow in Basic Biomedical Sciences, a fellowship renewed four times and now held as a Wellcome Investigator. She was promoted to Professor of Respiratory Immunology in 2006, became Head of the Division of Respiratory Sciences at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Vice Dean for Institutional Affairs in 2016, Interim Head of NHLI in 2023, and Satellite Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute since 2018.

Professor Lloyd's research specializes in respiratory immunology, focusing on allergic immunity in early life, pulmonary inflammation, asthma pathogenesis, and airway remodeling. Her laboratory has pioneered models of chronic allergic inflammation, revealing critical roles for eosinophils, chemokines such as eotaxin via CCR3 and CCR4 pathways, T helper cells, macrophages, Interleukin-9, and the ICOS/ICOS-L pathway. Notable contributions include insights into early-life allergen exposure effects on pulmonary homeostasis and immune-stromal interactions in lung immunity. Key publications encompass 'A critical role for eosinophils in allergic airways remodeling' (2004, 1136 citations), 'Functions of T cells in asthma: more than just TH2 cells' (2010, 812 citations), 'Resolution of airway inflammation and hyperreactivity after in vivo transfer of CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells is interleukin 10 dependent' (2005, 756 citations), and 'After asthma: redefining airways diseases' (2018, 1322 citations). Her impact is evidenced by over 22,000 citations on Google Scholar. Awards include the Imperial College London Rector's Medal for Research Supervision (2014), Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2019), and Fellowship of the Royal Society of Biology. She led the National Heart and Lung Institute to the UK's first Silver Athena SWAN award (2009-2014), edits Mucosal Immunology and the European Journal of Immunology, and serves on the scientific advisory board of Science magazine and other prestigious committees.