Recipient of the 2007 PhARF Award
The subject of the 2007 PhARF Award was
"Impact of allergy – from mechanisms to treatment"
The PhARF Award Ceremony took place on Tuesday, June 12 at the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) in Gothenburg.
Prof Anthony Frew, Chairman of EAACI, moderated the Award Ceremony. This year the competition was so hard that it was shared equally between two applicants.
Prof SGO Johansson, presented the 2007 Award Winners – Dr Graham Ogg, University of Oxford, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford, UK for his work on "Impaired maturation of T cell responses to allergens; impact on atopic disease" and Dr Susanne Vrtala, Medical University of Vienna, Department of Pathophysiology, Vienna, Austria for her article on "From allergen genes to new forms of allergy diagnosis and treatment". Both Dr Ogg and Dr Vrtala received an Honorable Mention from PhARF last year and the latter also in 2002.
Graham Ogg, PhD, trained in medicine at the University of Oxford where he graduated top in his university year. After junior medical appointments he returned to Oxford to start his MRC-funded doctoral studies and then completed his specialist training in dermatology. He now runs a laboratory in Oxford which is predominantly funded through an MRC Senior Clinical Fellowship and investigates the role of human cutaneous T cells in mechanisms of skin disease and treatment.
Dr Ogg is a practising dermatologist and sees patients with general dermatological problems, but has a particular clinical interest in atopic dermatitis and type I allergic disease. He is also Chairman of the British Society for Investigative Dermatology and co-editor of Clinical and Experimental Dermatology.
His laboratory has two principle programmes of research. The first addresses the role of allergen-specific T cells in the pathogenesis of atopic disease and the second investigates varicella zoster virus-specific T cells and mechanisms of control of viral replication. He has contributed to the development of HLA-peptide tetrameric complexes in the study of human disease and recently showed that staphylococcal superantigen promotes epithelial presentation of allergen to T cells, thus linking staphylococcal infection and allergic reactivity, two key associations of atopic disease (PNAS 2007 104:5557-62).
Susanne Vrtala, MSc, PhD was born in Vienna, Austria. After studying Biology/Genetics at the University of Vienna, she graduated with a Masters degree in 1991. In 1994, she received her PhD from the University of Vienna entitled "In vitro and in vivo characterization of natural and recombinant pollen allergens", which she performed at the Institute of General and Experimental Pathology. Continuing as a research assistant in the Department of Pathophysiology, she received her "Venia docendi" in 2001 and is currently head of the Immunotechnology Group at the Department of Pathophysiology, Vienna Medical University.
Dr Vrtala has authored more than 80 publications and has 9 patent applications.
She has also received several international scientific awards, including the Allergopharma Award in 2002 and twice attained an Honourable Mention from the PhARF in 2002 and 2006.
A special guest this year was Dr Martin Chapman, President of Indoor Biotechnologies, Charlottesville, VA, USA, who told some "anecdotes" from when he received the very first PhARF Award in 1987.
After the ceremony the foundation invited participants and audience to lunch.
Click to read about former PhARF winners (pdf) »