Dr Robin Gore MB ChB, BSc, FRCP, PhD

My main areas of research interest are:

DOMESTIC ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURES

We all all exposed to billions of particles in the air, and the majority of our time is spent in the home.  New techniques allow us to measure and identify with greater accuracy the organisms and biological fragments that we breathe in every day. My interest is to investigate the built environment using these tools to help explore the relationships between airborne exposures and disease. Current work is focussed on novel projects involving the measurement within the home of fungal exposures and on cat allergens.

FUNGAL EXPOSURE AND COLONISATION IN RESPIRATORY DISEASE (FECRD).

Patients with severe asthma are more likely to be sensitised ('allergic') to fungi present in the air around us. We need to know whether this is important, because we may then develop treatments aimed at reducing fungal exposures or at the allergic component of the disease. I am the main investigator for FECRD. This has become a large project which is currently facilitating the phenotyping of fungal allergy in patients with severe asthma. With collaborators each leading on a range of different mechanistic, therapeutic and environmental themes (see below - collaborators), we hope to better understand this important phenomenom.

Settings:

• Severe asthma clinic at University Hospital of South Manchester.
• Respiratory allergy clinic at lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
• The Manchester Adult Cystic fibrosis Unit

THE INFLUENCE OF EPITHELIAL-MESENCHYMAL INTERACTIONS ON MUCUS PRODUCTION IN HYPERSECRETORY RESPIRATORY DISEASE

Unhealthy lungs produce too much mucus (phlegm) which is often thick and difficult to cough up. When someone has an asthma attack, this can be very severe and can lead to a lack of oxygen reaching the blood stream. We don't have good treatments to prevent mucus production: it is very important that we understand more about this.

I am the clinical partner on this project to explore the causes of excess mucus production in patients who have diseases such as asthma and COPD.

• This work is sponsored by THE HADWEN TRUST.

MEDICAL EXPERTISE IN FOLLOWING SPECIALIST AREAS:

• Severe asthma
• Severe asthma with fungal sensitisation
• Respiratory allergy

ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURES

• Design of environmental allergen exposure studies.
• Personal breathing zone exposure measurements
• Nasal air sampling, I.O.M. sampling.

GENERIC LABORATORY SKILLS

• Competent in a range of laboratory skills, from cell culture, DNA-, RNA- and protein-based methods, and some mycological techniques.

UNIVERSITY TEACHING.

Regular lectures, question setting and written examination marking
 

Undergraduate medical curriculum lectures:

• ‘Introduction to Allergic Disease’
• ‘Respiratory allergy’
• ‘Obstructive and Restrictive Lung Diseases’
• Pulmonary Sepsis.’

Faculty of Life Sciences, BSc - Current trends in human anatomy ledture:

• The anatomy of the lung and the clinicopathological correlations.

Faculty of Life Sciences, MSc – Immunology. Lecture:

• Introduction to Allergic Disease.

Regular ward- and outpatient-based teaching of medical students and foundation year doctors.
 

EXTRA-MURAL TEACHING.

Continuing Education

• 2009  Teaching/supervision of respiratory physiotherapist: Non-medical prescribing course.
• 2007 - 2009  Teaching seminars for general practitioners: COPD, Allergic rhinitis & airways diseases.
• 2007  Mentoring and supervision of specialist respiratory nurse: Course on clinical examination and clinical decision making.
• 2007  BTS Short Course on Allergy (Course organiser and speaker)
• 2007  - on.  Regional General Internal Medicine SpR teaching: Respiratory allergy.
• 2006  Lecture: ‘Allergen avoidance’, Allergy Workshop, Education for Health, Manchester.
• 1997  - on. Clinical teaching for junior doctors preparing for MRCP (annual).

Invited Lectures

• 2010  Royal Society of Medicine, Manchester. Causes of allergy and allergens.
• 2009  Practical Solutions for Unresponsive Asthma. Manchester. "Allergen avoidance for the amelioration of allergic symptoms: Where are we now?"
• 2009  Glasgow Autumn Lung Conference.  "Allergen avoidance for the amelioration of allergic symptoms: Where are we now?"
• 2009  British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology Scientific Meeting. "Year-in-review: Asthma."
• 2009  Jun Diagnostica e Terapia delle micosi opportunistiche. Genoa. "Fungi and Antifungal Therapy in Asthma."
• 2008  British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Scientific Meeting.  “ House Dust Mite Avoidance in Children.”
• 2007  European Academy of Allergology & Clinical Immunology (EAACI) Allergy School, Oxford. Lectures: “Allergen avoidance” and “The role of fungal atopy in severe asthma”
• 2007  BTS Short Course on Allergy. Manchester (Course Director). "Pro-Con debate on Allergen avoidance for patients with established allergic diseases."
• 2006  Allergy Workshop, Education for Health, Manchester. "Allergen avoidance."
• 2006  Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Preston Symposium. “Putting the Sense into Sensitisation”. 

EXAMINATIONS DUTIES.

• 2009 - current. OSCE Examiner Trainer
• 2009 - current. OSCE Question setting seminar lead
• 2009 - current. BSc – Current trends in anatomy: question setting and marking
• 2008 - current. Year 3 and 4 exam lead. University of Manchester/LTHTR
• 2006 - current. Regular OSCE examining duties

I graduated from Edinburgh University, then trained in respiratory and general medicine in the North West of England. I developed a particular interest in allergen exposure science and then respiratory allergy while working as a research registrar in Manchester with Professors Ashley Woodcock and Adnan Custovic. I obtained my PhD, “Nasal air sampling and the quantification of domestic aeroallergen exposure” in 2004. I started in my current position in January 2006.

I have been active in the promotion of respiratory allergy, through the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology, for the past 10 years: meetings secretary 2008 and 2009; deputy meetings secretary 2006 and 2007; past junior representative.

BSc (Med Sci), University of Edinburgh, 1990
MB ChB, University of Edinburgh, 1992
MRCP, Edinburgh, 1995
Ph D, University of Manchester, 2004

FUNGAL EXPOSURE AND COLONISATION IN RESPIRATORY DISEASE

Professor David Denning

Dr Robert Niven

Dr Paul Bowyer

Dr Andrew Jones

DOMESTIC ENVIRONMENTAL EXPOSURES

Professor Malcolm Richardson.

Professor Adnan Custovic

Dr Robert Boyle, Imperial College, London

Professor John Warner, Imperial College, London

THE INFLUENCE OF EPITHELIAL-MESENCHYMAL INTERACTIONS ON MUCUS PRODUCTION IN HYPERSECRETORY RESPIRATORY DISEASE

• Dr Sarah Herrick, University of Manchester
• Dr David Thornton, University of Manchester
• Dr Ceri Harrop, University of Manchester