Allergopharma Award 2008

The Allergopharma Award was instituted in association with the European Academy of Allergology and Clinical Immunology, in order to recognise excellent research conducted by younger members of the Academy in the field of mechanisms of allergic inflammation and allergen specific immunotherapy.

The eight Award was presented by the President of the European Academy, Professor Roy Gerth van Wijk, to Dr. Georgina Xanthou during the XXVII th Congress of the Academy in Barcelona, Spain.

Dr. Xanthou is a graduate of the University of Athens.
The work for her PhD was conducted in the Department of Pathophysiology at the University of Athens Medical School and concerned the role of chemokines produced by antigen presenting cells in the autoimmune disease Sjogren’s syndrome.
Chemokines were a continuing theme in her post-doctoral studies with Professor Tim Williams at Imperial College London.
Here she investigated the functional cross-talk between chemokine receptors and the influence on different lymphocyte subsets during immune responses.
She returned to Athens to take-up a faculty position at the Biomedical Research Foundation where she is now an Assistant Professor.
Her current work focuses on the role of cytokines, and in particular Osteopontin and Activin-A, in the induction and regulation of T-helper lymphocyte immunity, and the dysregulated immunity associated with allergy and autoimmunity.
Dr. Xanthou was chosen to receive the Allergopharma Award on the basis of a publication in Nature Medicine which presents evidence that Osteopontin exhibits dual and opposing effects on T-helper lymphocyte reactivity in allergic disease through regulation of dendritic cell sub-sets.