Professor Ashley Woodcock

Professor Woodcock is a Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the North West Lung Centre and the University of Manchester, and Head of the School of Translational Medicine. He is also a Consultant Respiratory Physician at the University Hospital of South Manchester, where he is the Clinical Academic Lead. He graduated with an intercalated first-class honours in physiology and an honours degree in Medicine from the University of Manchester in 1975. He then worked in London and, returning for clinical training at the Royal Brompton Hospital. He was appointed an NHS Consultant Physician in Manchester in 1985 and became Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the University of Manchester in 1998.

He has been Chairman of the Clinical Assembly of the European Respiratory Society, Chairman of the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Committee and Public Education Officer of the British Thoracic Society. He was awarded the OBE in 2006 for his Chairmanship of the Medical Technical Committee to the Montreal Protocol for the previous decade. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with IPCC Al Gore.  He was awarded Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2008.

Research interests
He has a wide range of clinical research interests that are all patient focused and has authored over 200 original publications. Together with Professor Adnan Custovic, he established the Manchester Asthma and Allergy Study, which is a cohort of over one thousand children followed prospectively from birth through the first decade of their life so far to investigate the genetic-environmental aetiology of allergy and asthma.

More recently, he has developed an interest in cough and his group have developed and ambulatory cough monitor with appropriate patent protection jointly held by the Trust and the University. He helped establish the Medicines Evaluation Unit that carries out Phase 1-4 clinical trials on novel treatments for respiratory diseases. He now heads a group of four other Academic Chairs in Respiratory Medicine and five Senior Lecturers covering all sub-specialties of Respiratory Medicine in newly built specialist facilities at the North West Lung Centre.

Related links

• Professor Ashley Woodcock's staff profile
• School of Translational Medicine
• Respiratory Research Group
• North West Lung Centre