E. Richard Moxon

E. Richard Moxon
Born 1941
Nationality British
Education BA, MB, and BChir
Alma mater Cambridge University
St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
Occupation Physician, Professor, and Medical Researcher
Years active 1968 to present
Known for Co-founding the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine
Title Emeritus Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford
Awards Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (1998)
Fellow of the Royal Society (2007)
Website Official website

E. Richard Moxon[1] is a medical researcher and Emeritus Professor of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford. Previously he held positions at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. At Oxford he was Chairman of Paediatrics and the Head of the Molecular Infectious Diseases Group in the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. During his career he has researched and helped develop several types of vaccines.

Early life

Richard Moxon was born in 1941, and has stated he wanted to become a doctor from a young age. Starting in 1960, he attended Cambridge University for his undergraduate studies,[2] graduating with a BA in Natural Sciences. Between 1963 and 1966 he attended St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, graduating with a MB and BChir.[3]

Medical career

Moxon became a Paediatric doctor starting in 1968, after covering for a friend at Whittington Hospital in North London. Afterwards he began working at the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, followed by a one-year training post in 1970 at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston, after which he received a three-year fellowship. During this time, he created the first “experimental model of H influenzae meningitis to simulate all phases of the human infection.” Starting in 1974, he joined the Faculty of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 1984, he then became the Action Research Professor and Chairman of Paediatrics[4] at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, where he imported the US model of medical research to the UK. After a few years, he became one of the founders of the Oxford University’s Institute of Molecular Medicine, later called the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine.[2]

He held his positions at Oxford University until 2008, and was Head of the Molecular Infectious Diseases Group in the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine from 1988 to 2008. In 1998 he became a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences. The year before his retirement, in 2007, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society.[4][5]

Research

Moxon’s research interests include Paediatrics and Microbiology.[6] This research has included the discovery of the existence of “switch regions” in the genome of bacteria through contingency genes. The results were published in Science.[7] His work was one of the first in the development of genome-based vaccines, and according to The Lancet, his work in vaccines included, “Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) conjugate vaccines, orchestrated the definitive efficacy study of a Hib conjugate vaccine in UK children, and was intimately involved in sequencing the meningococcus B genome.”[2][8] Moxon is the author or co-author of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.[9][10] Following his retirement, he placed more emphasis on his career in vaccine development.[2] In the 2010s, Moxon was involved in the development of a vaccine for meningitis B in infants,[11] after becoming one of the first to uncover the genomic properties of the organism.[12]

In 2011 Moxon initiated a series of papers in The Lancet medical journal, highlighting the twenty new or improved vaccines that the medical community was working towards over the following decade. According to the BBC, part of the special issue was to call “on developing countries to shoulder more of the responsibility for financing vaccination programmes.”[13] He authored the article “The next decade of vaccines: societal and scientific challenges” in the issue,[14] which itself was entitled the “New Decade of Vaccines Series”.[2] Moxon has been interviewed as vaccine expert for television media, such as the BBC,[15] and newspaper coverage of medical stories.[16] He has advocated for increasing immunizations among the poor in the UK and other countries.[17]

Recognition

Immunologist Gustav Nossal was quoted in The Lancet stating that Moxon is “Olympian figure in the world of paediatric vaccinology”, and called a “pioneer” by microbiologist Rino Rappuoli.[2] The Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine at Oxford University was renamed The Moxon Building in September 2013.[18]

References

  1. ↑ "Thinking Small Paying Off Big In Gene Quest". The New York Times. 3 February 1997.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)61155-0/fulltext?rss=yes
  3. ↑ "Professor Richard Moxon - Jesus College, University of Oxford".
  4. 1 2 "Richard Moxon — Department of Paediatrics".
  5. ↑ Shetty, Priya (22 June 2011). "Vaccine trial's ethics criticized". 474 (7352): 427–428. doi:10.1038/474427a – via www.nature.com.
  6. ↑ Page, Michael Le. "Speargun-toting superbugs end up shooting each other".
  7. ↑ "Bacteria use quick-switch genes to dodge host defenses".
  8. ↑ Wade, Nicholas (1 January 2002). "The New York Times Book of Genetics". Globe Pequot – via Google Books.
  9. ↑ Pollard, Andrew J.; Jr, George H. McCracken; Finn, Adam (6 December 2012). "Hot Topics in Infection and Immunity in Children". Springer Science & Business Media – via Google Books.
  10. ↑ Brade, Helmut (2 July 1999). "Endotoxin in Health and Disease". CRC Press – via Google Books.
  11. ↑ "Meningitis B jab 'must get green light'".
  12. ↑ Ainsworth, Claire. "Bug uncovered".
  13. ↑ "Researchers' hope of 20 new vaccines in next decade - BBC News".
  14. ↑ http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60407-8/abstract
  15. ↑ http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(00)00427-9
  16. ↑ Metro.co.uk, Ashitha Nagesh for (22 February 2016). "Meningitis B petition becomes 'most-signed' - so why is there an age limit?".
  17. ↑ "Britain to launch a nationwide vaccination programme against Meningitis B". 29 March 2015.
  18. ↑ "Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine 10th Anniversary - Nuffield Department of Medicine".

External links

www.paediatrics.ox.ac.uk/team/richard-moxon

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