PROF BOBBY GASPAR

Bobby is a professor of paediatrics and immunology at the UCL Institute of Child Health and an honorary consultant in paediatric immunology at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.

His interests are in many different aspects of primary immunodeficiency, including understanding the molecular and cellular defects and disease pathogenesis, bone marrow transplantation for severe immunodeficiencies and the development of gene and cell therapy for these conditions. Over the last decade his team’s clinical trials have shown that gene therapy can successfully correct the immune defect in specific immunodeficiency conditions. Bobby leads UK and European initiatives for newborn screening for severe combined immunodeficiency. He is also director of the Centre for Research into Rare Disease in Children, a new academic and clinical facility that will open at Great Ormond Street in 2018.

Gene therapy

Bobby speaks about the successes and challenges of gene therapy to date and the potential of gene therapy to treat and cure a range of genetic disorders in the future.