Professor Salim Khakoo BSc, MBBS, FRCP, MD
Professor of Hepatology, Associate Dean Enterprise, Director of Biomedical Research (IFLS),
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Professor Salim Khakoo is Professor of Hepatology, The Associate Dean (Enterprise) of Medicine and Director of Biomedical Research (IFLS). He is also Secretary for The Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland.
Natural killer cells are an untapped therapeutic resource, which should be harnessed for patient benefit
I have an interest in chronic liver disease and immunology, in particular viral hepatitis and the innate immune system. I was a research fellow at The Royal Free Hospital and then a post-doctoral fellow with Peter Parham at Stanford, USA. I returned to the UK with an MRC Clinician Scientist award to study Natural killer cells and hepatitis C, and subsequently a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellowship award, to research more deeply into innate immunity and hepatitis C.
My key achievements to date are:
- Discovery of an association between inhibitory KIR and the outcome of HCV infection. This work was published in Science, with an accompanying editorial. It defined a new model for both HCV infection and also for how natural killer cells work.
- The identification of NK cells as key components in the immune response to HCV both from genetic studies, but also functional work
- The identification of MHC class I bound peptides as a novel control mechanism for NK cells: “peptide antagonism of NK cells” (published in PNAS with an accompanying editorial). The implications for this work is that this phenomenon represents a mechanism for recognition of virally infected cells, as peptides have recently been shown to be important for the NK cell responses to HIV.
- Discovery of the rapid evolution of NK cell receptors (published in Immunity).
- Developing international collaborations studying: a) the genetics of HCV (with NIH and Johns Hopkins Hospitals) leading to the discovery of IL-28B as a determinant in the spontaneous resolution of HCV infection (Nature 2009); and b) NK cells and peptides leading to the description of peptide on the outcome of HIV infection (Nature 2011)