Professor Edwin Chilvers [FRCP, FMedSci, ScD] graduated from Nottingham University Medical School and after Junior medical posts in London started specialist training in Respiratory Medicine at Hammersmith Hospital. This was followed by an MRC Clinical Training Fellowship to work with Professor Steve Nahorski in University of Leicester, studying inositol phospholipid metabolism in airways smooth muscle. He was then appointed Lecturer in Respiratory Medicine at Edinburgh University, working with Professor Chris Haslett, and thereafter to a Wellcome Senior Research Fellowship in Clinical Science, Reader in Medicine at Edinburgh, and Hon Consultant Physician at the Royal Infirmary Hospital.

During this he developed his research interest in inflammatory cell biology, in particular the intracellular signals that regulate the activation and survival of white blood cells (neutrophils and eosinophils). This has translational relevance to a range of inflammatory lung diseases including COPD, asthma, and acute lung injury.

Professor Chilvers was Professor of Respiratory Medicine at Cambridge from 1998-2018 prior to his appointment as Professor of Medicine and Head, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London 2018-2023 (now Emeritus Professor of Medicine). He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2007 and President of the British Thoracic Society in December 2016.