The 2024 BSACI Fellow is Professor Adam Fox. Few people have made a greater contribution to the BSACI than Adam. He first became a member 20 years ago when he started his training programme in Allergy at St Mary’s. After just 3 years, he was personally invited by then-President Professor Steve Durham, to become the deputy meetings secretary.
Between 2006 and 2011, Adam was involved with the transformation of the BSACI meeting at a time when attendance was around 150 requiring a cheque and a written application. He took the meeting online and through his leadership the meeting more than doubled in size in terms of attendance, sponsorship, and academic content.
In 2018, he became the first paediatrician to be elected as Society President. As this concluded, he moved into the role of Chair of the National Allergy Strategy Group. Adam’s contributions to the specialty through education, research, patient advocacy and clinical practice development are well known and were the reason for his well-deserved recognition in 2015 with the William Frankland award as one of the youngest-ever recipients.
What stands Adam apart from the other members who would also be very worthy fellows, is the level of specific contribution to the BSACI itself, with over 17 years of continuous service in key roles. Such a large part of the society’s activities, across so many areas, have Adam’s fingerprints all over them.
Chris Corrigan is Emeritus Clinical Professor of Asthma, Allergy & Respiratory Science at King’s College London. He was trained at Oxford and London Universities and read for his PhD with Professor Barry Kay at the National Heart & Lung Institute in London. He has published more than 180 original manuscripts on asthma immunopathology and been awarded >£13 million in peer reviewed research funding. Working alongside Professor Tak Hong Lee, he founded the adult allergy and severe asthma services at Guy’s Hospital, London, the former since acknowledged by the WAO and GA2LEN as a Centre of Excellence, and the latter commissioned by NHS England as a national provider.
For many years he chaired the UK Royal College of Physicians Allergy Specialist Advisory Committee and formulated the content of the UK Specialist Registrar training programme in Adult Allergy. He has taught and supervised 12 Allergy Specialist Registrars, 15 PhD students and hundreds of medical undergraduates.
He was awarded the William Frankland Award for outstanding services to clinical allergy in 2007 and the Jack Pepys Award for outstanding contributions to basic allergy and immunology research in 2013, followed by a personal award for outstanding service to the speciality in 2018.
Chris has been actively involved in BSACI for decades and is regularly called upon to provide expert advice for BSACI mainly around asthma and allergies especially for BSACI NICE stakeholder engagement submissions.