Airway macrophage carbon: biomarker of exposure to particulate matter air pollution

MY JOB AND UNIT IN WHICH I WORK The research presented here was conducted at the Division of Child Health at the University of Leicester (Leicester, UK). I was a research fellow on the project supervised by Professor Jonathan Grigg. Professor Grigg (who has been presented with the Occupational and Environmental Best Paper Annual Award 2007 by the European Respiratory Society) is currently based at Queen Mary University of London (London, UK), and I am now collaborating with him on future research. The University of Leicester has links with the Gondar Institute of Medical Sciences in Ethiopia (the Leicester–Gondar Link) for sharing skills and expertise between health professionals. We are also fortunate to have a cohort group, established by Professor M. Silverman and Dr C. Kuehni, which follows children with wheeze and asthma. One of the research interests of the group is to assess associations of traffic proximity and respiratory symptoms in cohort children. Professor Chris O’Callaghan (Professor of Paediatrics and Head of the Child Health Division at the University of Leicester) leads the National Referral Service for investigation of patients with primary ciliary dyskinesia. His research group is investigating the effect of bacteria and viruses on the human ciliated respiratory epithelium.