Professor Murray Selkirk, Professor of Biochemical Parasitology, has accepted appointment as Head of the Department of Life Sciences with effect from 1 October 2011. He will succeed Professor Ian Owens who is leaving the College to become Director of Science at the Natural History Museum.
Professor Selkirk joined the College in 1984 as a Research Fellow following a PhD at the National Institute for Medical Research and postdoctoral appointments at the University of Washington, Seattle and University of California Berkeley. He was appointed as a Lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry in 1986, promoted to Reader in 1994 and Professor in 2001, and was Head of the Division of Cell & Molecular Biology from 2005-2008. He has served on numerous steering committees and advisory boards worldwide related to infectious diseases, and is currently Director of the Wellcome Trust PhD Programme in Molecular and Cellular Basis of Infection at the College. His research focuses on infections caused by parasitic helminth worms, and in particular on the mechanisms these parasites use to manipulate the host immune system for long-term survival.