ERS Research Award: Innovation in Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria Science and Medicine 2015

Professor Andres Floto's clinical interests are focused on the basic biology, translational science, and clinical research of nontuberculous mycobacterial infections. Professor Floto studied at the University of Cambridge (as part of the MB-PhD programme), and trained at Addenbrooke's, Hammersmith, Royal Brompton and Papworth Hospitals before establishing his group at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research in 2002. He was first appointed as an MRC/Academy of Medical Sciences Clinician Scientist, became a Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow in 2008 and is now Professor of Respiratory Biology.

Professor Floto's research laboratory is currently focused on understanding how mycobacteria survive within cells and thereby evade the immune system. Using a combination of population bacterial genomics, genetic screening, cell biology and live cell imaging techniques, his group has begun to define the key host and bacterial determinants that control the intracellular killing of mycobacteria and ways to manipulate them therapeutically.

ERS Research Director, Professor Maria Belvisi, said: "Professor Floto and his team have made important insights into genetic susceptibility to nontuberculous mycobacterial infection and to potential new drugs to treat multidrug-resistant mycobacteria through stimulating innate immunity of the host."

The ERS Research Award: Innovation in Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) Science and Medicine, financially supported by Insmed, is a grant for €10,000 offered to a researcher pursuing an active research project in the NTM lung disease field.

Professor Floto will be presented with the ERS Research Award: Innovation in Non-Tuberculous Mycobacteria Science and Medicine at the Year in Review: Tuberculosis: short-course chemotherapy, on Monday 28 September 2015, from 08:30 in Room 7.1.