Dr Peter Cook

About me:

Dr Peter Cook is a Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow at the MRC Centre for Medical Mycology. Peter’s research focuses on understanding how the lung-airway environment influences innate immunity to mediate anti-fungal allergic disease, a recognised key neglected area of research. Of the 500,000 asthma-related human deaths occurring annually, 50% are caused by fungal sensitisation to airborne spores of the environmental mould Aspergillus fumigatus. A mechanistic understanding of asthmatic immunopathology will radically improve therapeutic strategies for all asthmatic disease.

Our lungs are exposed to thousands of fungal spores everyday (particularly Aspergillus), triggering immune cells in the lung to cause asthma and severe allergic disease. Despite the rising number of cases and developing resistance to current therapies, we do not understand how or why Aspergillus causes asthma and this is a recognised key neglected area of research.

Previously my work has identified novel mechanisms on how specialised innate cells, called dendritic cells and macrophages, cause allergic inflammation that underpins asthma. Recently I have discovered that the lung airways govern innate immune cell responses during this inflammation via modifying how they generate energy (metabolic state). Yet how these processes co-ordinate severe asthmatic disease against fungal spores is unknown.

We are now focusing on understanding how the lung-airway environment and the fungal spores themselves, influences the metabolism of dendritic cells and macrophages and their abilty to mediate allergic inflammation. This work will discover how fungal asthma develops, as well as reveal new treatment strategies to prevent and/or treat these conditions in the future.

PhD. University of York (2004 – 2009).

BSc (Hons) Genetics with a year in industry. University of York (2000 – 2004)

Wellcome Trust Sir Henry Dale Fellow. University of Exeter (2020 – present)

Dean’s Prize Fellow. University of Manchester (2016 – 2020)

Post doctoral researcher. University of Manchester (2013 – 2016)

Post doctoral researcher. University of Edinburgh (2008 – 2013)