Interview: Interview with Peter J Barnes

Peter Barnes is Professor of Thoracic Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute (London, UK), Head of Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College (London, UK) and Honorary Consultant Physician at Royal Brompton Hospital (London, UK). He qualified at Cambridge and Oxford Universities (first class honours [Cambridge, UK and Oxford, UK, respectively]) and was appointed to his present posts in 1987. He has published over 1000 peer-reviewed papers on asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) and related topics and has written or edited over 50 books. He is also among the top 50 most highly cited researchers in the world and has been the most highly cited clinical scientist in Europe and the most highly cited respiratory researcher in the world over the last 20 years. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2007, the first respiratory researcher for over 150 years. He is currently a member of the Scientific Committee of global guidelines on asthma and COPD. He also serves on the Editorial Board of over 30 journals and is currently an Associate Editor of several respiratory publications. He has given several prestigious lectures, including the Amberson Lecture at the American Thoracic Society, the Sadoul Lecture at the European Respiratory Society and the Croonian Lecture at the Royal College of Physicians, London. He has been received honorary MD degrees from the Universities of Ferrara (Italy), Athens (Greece), Tampere (Finland) and Leuven (Belgium). He is a NIHR Senior Investigator and was elected a Master Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians in 2012. He is President Elect of the European Respiratory Society. He co-founded an Imperial spin-out company RespiVert, which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson and has developed novel inhaled treatments for COPD and severe asthma. Interview conducted by Hannah Coaker, Assistant Commissioning Editor.