septic shock

10 June 2004

On 17 June 2004 BSMS Dean, Professor Jonathan Cohen, will present his research entitled Septic Shock: patients as their own worst enemy in the first of the Medical School’s series of inaugural lectures.

Before taking up post at the School in February 2002, Professor Cohen was head of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at Imperial College, London for nine years.

He has an international reputation in infectious diseases, particularly in his work on sepsis and septic shock. He is editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Infectious Diseases and is regularly invited to give keynote lectures at major international institutions and conferences.

Professor Cohen is also an advisor to the Department of Health and other national organisations, such as the Meningitis Trust. He served on the Chief Medical Officer's review group on communicable diseases strategy and is a member of the Department of Health's Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, as well as other Department advisory bodies.

Septic shock is a condition that occurs when a very severe infection sets up an abnormally vigorous host response. The result is damage to many cells and tissues, and ultimately many of the key organs in the body start to fail. This is not about “antibiotic resistant” bacteria: the problem here is all about the host and how it responds to the infection. And why is it that we all don’t get septic shock when we get a nasty infection? Are there genetic factors which make some of us more susceptible to this problem than others?

Professor Cohen’s research analyses these concerns, “Why and how people die from severe infections, and what we can do to prevent and/or treat them, have been at the core of my interest in infectious diseases. In this lecture I will discuss the challenges we face in trying to understand how the host immune system responds to infection, and how we might be able to subvert it to help us develop new treatments.”

The lecture will be held at the new BSMS building on the University of Sussex, Falmer campus on 17 June at 6.30pm. To attend this event, e-mail lectures@bsms.ac.uk.

BSMS inaugural lectures will take place once per term and feature research presentations by each professor. The next in the series is scheduled for 27 October 2004 by Professor Di Watt.

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