New Deputy Director appointed for the UK DRI in Cardiff

Professor Philip Taylor has been announced as the new Deputy Director for the UKDRI at Cardiff University.

The institute in Cardiff is exploring the function of genes involved in Alzheimer’s, ​Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s disease. The team hope to identify molecular targets that will lead to new drugs that can prevent or treat dementia.

Professor Julie Williams, director of the UKDRI in Cardiff, explained, "We are delighted that Professor Taylor has agreed to become the Deputy Director of the UKDRI at Cardiff.  His considerable expertise in immune systems and molecular biology are already invaluable and will underpin the development of future strategies to understand disease mechanisms and develop new therapies to combat dementia."

Professor Taylor has over twenty years research experience in functional biology, primarily in basic mechanistic science. His career started on the complement system before specialisation in macrophage biology.

He has developed novel in vivo models of inflammation and its resolution, published founding studies on pathogen recognition by immune receptors Dectin-1 and - 2, the first definitive studies of both tissue-resident and inflammatory monocyte-derived macrophages renewal by proliferation in vascular tissues and the demonstration of a locally-controlled homeostatic transcriptional programme for tissue resident macrophages, which led to a move into dementia research and specifically, understanding Alzheimer’s disease mechanisms and contributing to therapy development.

Professor Taylor said, “In its first few years the UKDRI at Cardiff has already seen significant growth, I am looking forward to the challenge of building on the initial successes and working with the rest of the team to focus our future strategy to better understand the development of dementia and possible therapeutic approaches.”