Claire Pearson

Dr Claire Pearson studied Biology at Imperial College London, followed by a PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research where she looked at the mechanisms of immune cell survival. She moved to the University of Oxford as a postdoctoral researcher to focus on immune cells in the intestine. It was here that she underwent the realisation that without microbes, there is no immune system, and moved beyond pure immunology to study how the immune system and microbes co-exist. She was a founding member of the Oxford Centre for Microbiome Studies where as a Senior Gnotobiology Scientist she currently conducts research into how the microbiota influence inflammatory diseases including inflammatory bowel disease and arthritis. She also teaches immunology to undergraduate medical students at the University of Oxford.