Professor Alex Richter
Director of the Clinical Immunology Service, University of Birmingham and Consultant Clinical Immunologist, University Hospitals Birmingham
Speaker's biography
Professor Alex Richter is chair of clinical immunology at the University of Birmingham(UoB) and honorary consultant immunologist at the University Hospitals Birmingham. The focus of her clinical and academic work is secondary immunodeficiency either due to underlying haematological malignancy or the consequence of immunosuppression. A key theme is understanding and assessing vaccine responses and developing immunodiagnostics to support this work. During the pandemic, Professor Richter focused her laboratory to developing a high sensitivity Sars-CoV-2 antibody assay that detects exposure to the virus following mild disease or vaccination which is now been commercialised with The Binding Site.
At UoB, she has lead the quality assurance and accreditation of a pillar 2 Turnkey laboratory and a research and development Sars-CoV-2 testing laboratory working with DHSC on the new technologies focussed on asymptomatic testing. She has utilised high-quality testing to support a number of DHSC and MRC/UKRI funded research projects including local and national cohorts to understand convalescent immunity following natural infection and vaccination and determining risk factors for infection.