Simon Carding PhD

Upon completing postgraduate work at the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Research Centre, Harrow, UK “emigrated” to the USA to take up postdoctoral positions first at New York University School of Medicine and then Yale University as a Howard Hughes Fellow. Left Yale to take up a faculty position at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and to develop a research group focusing on gut biology and immunology. After 15 years in the USA, returned to the UK to take up the Chair in Molecular Immunology at the University of Leeds.

At Leeds, the research emphasis shifted to host-microbe interactions in the gut leading to the development of a new program of research focusing on commensal bacteria of the gut and in particular, Bacteroides species which dominate the microbiota of the large intestine. This led to the development of a Bacteroides drug delivery platform for developing new treatments for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and for vaccine delivery. Left Leeds in 2008 to take up the position of Professor of Mucosal Immunology at the Norwich Medical School at the University of East Anglia and leader of the Gut Biology Research Programme at the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) supported Institute of Food Research (IFR), which is now the Quadram Institute (QI). Currently head of the Gut Microbes and Health research program (2012 - ) with responsibility for directing the research program of nine QI-based groups and six additional groups based at University of East Anglia, Imperial College/St. Marks University Hospital, and Queen Mary University London.

At QI, a major focus of the Carding research group is understanding how gut microbes communicate with their host and the role that bacteria-generated microvesicles play in this crosstalk and in influencing host cell physiology to establish and maintain physical and mental health. Formulations of commensal gut bacteria-derived microvesicles are being used to boost natural immunity in at-risk individuals, and for the delivery of therapeutic proteins and vaccine antigens to mucosal sites to treat or prevent autoimmune- or infection-related diseases (influenza virus and coronaviruses) that target the respiratory and GI-tracts.

He is also the chief investigator of the MOTION longitudinal population-based study in individuals aged 60 years and older investigating the role of the aging gut and microbiome in declining cognitive function and vision. He is also a chief investigator of a Phase IIb clinical trial (RESTORE ME) investigating the efficacy of fecal microbiota transplantation treatment for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue, which will begin in 2020.