Inaugural Lectures: Professors Helen Brough & Barbara McGowan

Register your place for this Inaugural Lecture on Microsoft Forms.

Join us to celebrate a special milestone for our new professors and hear about their inspiring career journeys. Doors for this event will open on 16.45 (BST), with the lectures to commence at 16.50. A drinks reception will be held at 18.00 immediately after the lecture.

Professor Helen Brough

How do children become allergic to food?

Abstract

Food allergy is a major public health concern, and up to 10% of children are now allergic to at least one food. In my inaugural lecture, I will present work on:

• How children become allergic to food through the skin
• Environmental peanut exposure and its relationship to developing peanut allergy
• Targeting the skin for allergy prevention
• Eating food allergens early and often to prevent food allergy
• Preventing the development of multiple nut and seed allergies.
• Mental health needs of food allergic children and their caregivers

Clinical academia is very rewarding and can also be challenging. I am hugely indebted to my mentors, teachers, supervisors, examiners for their guidance and to my colleagues, friends and family for their previous and ongoing support.

Biography

Helen Brough is an Honorary Professor at King’s College London and Consultant in Paediatric Allergy at the Evelina London Children's Hospital, St Thomas' Hospital and was Head of Service (2015-2023). She is a Principal Investigator on the Stopping Eczema and Allergy (SEAL) study (preventing food allergy through the skin) and the Pronuts study (to safely implement safe selective nut eating in nut allergic children). Helen co-authored the Learning Early About Peanut (LEAP), LEAP-ON, LEAP-Trio and Enquiring About Tolerance (EAT) study on oral tolerance induction. She is the President of the Royal Society of Medicine Allergy and Immunology Section and was the Chair or the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Paediatric Section (2019-2022). She was awarded the 2020 Distinguished Clinician Award by the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy and Immunology.

Professor Barbara McGowan

Hungry for more: a tale of guts and hormones

Abstract

This lecture is about a journey which starts in the South of Italy, and takes me to a comprehensive school in London and entry to Oxford University. My interest in chemistry and molecules made Biochemistry an easy choice to pursue. What followed was a change in direction towards banking and finance, a world which opened up opportunities but could not suppress a strong desire to study Medicine. My PhD was all about gut hormones and appetite control, at a time when obesity was not recognized as a disease and there were no effective treatments. I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to continue the journey into the science and clinical trials of gut hormone therapies, now approved as treatments in the NHS for people living with obesity.  

Biography

Professor Barbara McGowan is a Consultant Endocrinologist at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital and Professor of Endocrinology and Diabetes at King’s College London. She received her first degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University in 1988, and medical degree from the Royal Free Hospital in 1998. She was awarded a PhD from Imperial College London in 2007 for investigating ‘The role of relaxin-3 on energy homeostasis and the hypothalamic-pituitary-axis’. She is an investigator for several clinical trials in gut hormone therapies for obesity and was awarded an NIHR/RCP/CRN prize in recognition of outstanding research within the NHS. Professor McGowan is a Board member for the International Society for Endocrinology and co-chairs EASO’s Obesity Task Force. She is the recipient of the 2025 Outstanding Clinical Practitioner Award by the Society for Endocrinology.