Surinder Birring is Professor of Respiratory Medicine, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, School of Basic and Medical Biosciences, King's College London and Consultant Respiratory Physician at King's College Hospital. In 2001, Surinder studied the cellular mechanisms of unexplained cough with a British Lung Foundation Fellowship award. He continued his work as a Senior Fellow in Sydney, Australia in 2006. Surinder leads specialist clinics in cough, sarcoidosis/ILD and a research team that focuses on the assessment and treatment of cough and the development of patient reported outcome measures.

He has published over 300 papers, reviews and book chapters and is an author of American, British and European Cough clinical guidelines. He chairs the Scientific Committee of the European NeuroCough registry. He has been the chief investigator of numerous multi-centre clinical trials in cough.

His team developed the widely used quality of life questionnaires, LCQ, King's Brief Interstitial Lung Disease (KBILD), King's Sarcoidosis Questionnaires (KSQ) and recently Bronchiectasis Health Questionnaire (BHQ) and Cough Hypersensitivity Questionnaire (CHQ). Surinder is also co-developer of the LCM cough monitor device. Surinder was invited to give the John Widdicombe lecture in 2022 at the London International Cough Symposium for his contribution to research and elected Fellow of the European Respiratory Society in 2023.