Profile of Prof Ian Adcock
Ian M Adcock graduated in 1987 from the University of London with a PhD in molecular Pharmacology having investigated the role of steroid hormones in sexual dimorphisms in the brain. Following MRC-funded positions in Edinburgh and at St Georges’ Hospital in London he moved in 1990 to the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI) to work with Professor Peter J Barnes on the molecular mechanisms of glucocorticoid action in the lung. In 2004 he became Professor of Respiratory Cell & Molecular Biology at Imperial College London and is currently Head of Airways Disease at the NHLI.
Dr Adcock’s main research focus is on the regulation of the inflammatory mechanisms underlying severe asthma and COPD and understanding the causes of heightened inflammation and relative glucocorticoid insensitivity in patients with these diseases. Recent work has examined the role of epigenetics in airway inflammation and glucocorticoid function and the use of multi-omic analysis to define severe asthma and COPD molecular subphenotypes and drug responses.
He was a PI in the MRC-ABPI COPD MAP initiative and was awarded the ERS GOLD medal for COPD in 2019. Dr Adcock was a PI and WP Leader in the EU/EFPIA IMI UBIOPRED initiative to determine biomarkers of severe asthma using integrated ‘omics and clinical features and is now joint lead of the U-BIOPRED Alliance. He is a Co-PI in the MRC-funded PRISM study to examine biomarkers of responders and non-responders to T2 biologics using a multi-omic and single cell approach.
Dr Adcock serves on the Editorial Board of several Journals and was formerly Head of Assembly 5 (Airway Diseases) within the ERS and has served on the ERS and ATS Programme Committees. Dr Adcock has published >600 papers (H-index = 100).