Professor Paul Elkington BA, BM, BCh, PhD, FRCP, MBE

Professor of Respiratory Medicine

Paul Elkington is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Southampton within Medicine. He leads a research group studying pulmonary tuberculosis, specifically identifying how infection destroys the lungs and how this can lead to new diagnostic tests and treatments to combat the global pandemic.

Tuberculosis continues to kill four thousand people every single day. We conduct cross-disciplinary research using bioengineering approaches to identify new diagnostic and therapeutic strategies

Professor Elkington trained in medicine at Oxford and then worked in various London teaching hospitals, in addition to Zambia, and completed his training in respiratory and general medicine in 2007.

His research into lung destruction in tuberculosis started in Jon Friedland’s group at Imperial College London with a Wellcome Trust Clinical research training fellowship (2002 – 2005), followed by a NIHR Clinician Scientist Award (2006 – 2011), and then a HEFCE Clinical Senior Lecturer Award (2011 - 2016). He moved to Southampton University in June 2012 to develop a research programme centred on the role of proteases in the pathology of pulmonary infection. Current active funding is from MRC, EPSRC, Rosetrees Trust and PHE.

Professor Elkington is a member of NAMRIP, the University's Network for Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Prevention strategic research group. He has co-directed the development of the personal respirator project during the COVID19 pandemic (PeRSo) and also the developing world programme to improve provision of personal protective equipment in the developing world.

He was awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours for this work.