Southampton allergy team retains world excellence status

The asthma, allergy and immunology service in Southampton has once again been named as a World Centre of Excellence for achievements in clinical innovation and research.

The endorsement of the University of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust’s department of allergy by the World Allergy Organisation means city experts will continue to lead training, research and education internationally until 2026.

The department was the first centre in the world to be awarded Centre of Excellence status in 2014. The renewal bid was led by Professor Hasan Arshad with Dr Mich Lajeunesse and Professors Graham Roberts and Judith Holloway.

Professor Arshad, a consultant at Southampton General Hospital and chair of allergy and clinical immunology at the University of Southampton, said: “Southampton allergy experts have been at the forefront of the field for more than 30 years and we are in a unique position to be able to take our basic scientific discoveries through clinical trials and into the patient clinic.

“We are delighted to be named as a world centre of excellence, which is a testament to the hard work of our researchers and clinicians who are dedicated to improving patient care and research.”

In addition to hosting one of the largest allergy and immunology centres in the country at Southampton General Hospital, the department has an extensive research programme alongside hospital care which aims to discover novel ways to prevent the development of asthma and allergy, as well as finding better treatments for sufferers.

Various projects underway involve studying the effects of both genetic and environmental factors and how changes in the make-up of genes can play a role in altering the risk of allergic disease to see how the process could be reversed.

A number of the team work with the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre and the University is also one of only two MSc Allergy programmes in the world. It is the only one that is fully online and provides quality education for healthcare professionals, which is core to delivering quality clinical care for patients with allergy.