Biography
Duncan Maskell is the Marks & Spencer Professor of Farm Animal Health, Food Science and Food Safety, and Head of the Biological School at the University of Cambridge. Duncan worked on new vaccines against Salmonella and Bordetella at Wellcome Biotech in the 1980s before moving to the Institute for Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford where he worked on bacteria that cause childhood meningitis. From Oxford he moved to Imperial College, London, where his group studied Bordetella lipopolysaccharide, and Salmonella endotoxin.
In 1996 he moved to Cambridge where his group works on many aspects of pathogenesis and immunity to bacteria, including Salmonella spp., Campylobacter jejuni, Bordetella spp., Haemophilus parasuis, Streptococcus suis and Staphylococcus aureus. This work uses various cell and animal models, applying state-of-the-art genomics-based strategies in close collaboration with the Sanger Institute. His group has also developed tools for studying innate immunity, especially Toll-like receptors, as well as new air interface respiratory tract organ culture systems.
In 1998 Maskell was a co-founder of Arrow Therapeutics Ltd, a biotech company discovering novel antibacterials and antivirals, which was subsequently sold to Astra-Zeneca in 2007.
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