About
Professor Ramesh Kurukulaaratchy (more commonly known as “Prof Ramesh”) is Professor in Respiratory Medicine & Allergy at the University of Southampton (UoS), Deputy Director of the David Hide Asthma & Allergy Research Centre (DHAARC), Isle of Wight and an Honorary Consultant clinically specialising in Severe Asthma and Allergy at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) and at St Mary's Hospital Isle of Wight.
You can update this in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading and then ‘Curriculum and research description’, select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select - ‘About’.
Write about yourself in the third person. Aim for 100 to 150 words covering the main points about who you are and what you currently do. Clear, simple language is best. You can include specialist or technical terms.
You’ll be able to add details about your research, publications, career and academic history to other sections of your staff profile.
Research
Research interests
- The natural history of asthma and allergy across the lifecourse.Identification of risk factors for asthma and allergy across the lifecourse.Development of risk prediction scores and new diagnostics for asthma.Prevention strategies for asthma and allergy.Phenotyping and endotypic understanding of difficult-to-treat asthma.T-cell biology of severe asthma.The role of micro-RNAs as diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers in asthma.Understanding the multimorbidity framework of difficult-to-treat asthma.Developing multimodal interventions for difficult-to-treat asthma.
Current research
1. Epidemiology, natural history, genetic and environmental risk factors and epigenetic mechanisms in the origins and progression of asthma and allergy:
Ramesh undertook his DM thesis on the natural history of and risk factors for asthma and allergy in childhood by studying the IOWBC at age 10-years. He has since published extensively on this cohort and contributed to both 18 and 26-year follow-ups of that study. This work has expanded from epidemiology to include more mechanistic insights including the epigenetic basis of these diseases.
2. Prevention of asthma and allergy:
In addition to the IOWBC, Ramesh has been a senior co-investigator in the Isle of Wight Allergy Prevention study which was followed up to age 18-years and the Mite Allergen Prevention (MAPS) Study which has reported findings to 6-years.
3. Severe Asthma - WATCH Cohort:
Ramesh established this study in 2015. It offers a novel research model that engages NHS clinic patients in research through their routine clinical care. Over 650 patients have been recruited, and the study has attracted external funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Asthma UK-BLF and Industry, generating ~ £1.5 million research income to date. 25 abstracts have been presented at international meetings. The protocol paper can be accessed here https://rdcu.be/bEd9R. To date 17 papers have been published from WATCH in peer reveiwed journals. Areas of research focus include the clinical phenotyping and deeper endotyping of difficult asthma, epigenetics of severe asthma, the role of comorbidities, new treatment approaches for severe asthma and understanding models of multimorbidity in severe asthma.
4. The Role of microRNAs as Biomarkers in Asthma:
Ramesh led an initial Asthma + Lung UK funded study assessing the role of circulating microRNAs as potential biomarkers to support a) making an asthma diagnosis and b) identifying risk of having severe asthma. The findings have led to a patent application and a manuscript of the novel findings is in preparation. A follow-on study funded by Asthma + Lung UK is commencing in 2025.
5. Mechanisms of Airway Inflammation and Remodeling in Severe Asthma:
Ramesh is co-investigator on this NIH funded collaboration with colleagues at UCSD, LJI and SDBRI. The study involves extensive clinical phenotyping paired with deep endotypic assessment of blood, sputum and bronchoscopic samples collected from severe asthma patients (WATCH study) plus mild and non-asthmatic patients. Results are expected in 2026.
You can update the information for this section in Pure (opens in a new tab).
Research groups
Any research groups you belong to will automatically appear on your profile. Speak to your line manager if these are incorrect. Please do not raise a ticket in Ask HR.
Research interests
Add up to 5 research interests. The first 3 will appear in your staff profile next to your name. The full list will appear on your research page. Keep these brief and focus on the keywords people may use when searching for your work. Use a different line for each one.
In Pure (opens in a new tab), select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading 'Curriculum and research description', select 'Add profile information'. In the dropdown menu, select 'Research interests: use separate lines'.
Current research
Update this in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’ and then ‘Curriculum and research description - Current research’.
Describe your current research in 100 to 200 words. Write in the third person. Include broad key terms to help people discover your work, for example, “sustainability” or “fashion textiles”.
Research projects
Research Council funded projects will automatically appear here. The active project name is taken from the finance system.
Publications
Public outputs that list you as an author will appear here, once they’re validated by the ePrints Team. If you’re missing any outputs that you’ve added to Pure, they may be waiting for validation.
Supervision
Current PhD Students
Contact your Faculty Operating Service team to update PhD students you supervise and any you’ve previously supervised. Making this information available will help potential PhD applicants to find you.
Teaching
Undergraduate:
Lead role and teacher for 3rd year Allergy SSU for BM students.
Lead role and teacher for 5th year Allergy SSU for BM students.
Teacher on Year 1 BM4 and BM5 Courses.
Postgraduate:
Lead for Allergic Airways Disease Module on UoS Allergy MSC.
External:
Organisation and teaching for both primary care colleagues and specialist trainees (Respiratory Medicine) on asthma and allergy.
You can update your teaching description in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading and then ‘Curriculum and research description’ , select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select – ‘Teaching Interests’. Describe your teaching interests and your current responsibilities. Aim for 200 words maximum.
Courses and modules
Contact the Curriculum and Quality Assurance (CQA) team for your faculty to update this section.
External roles and responsibilities
These are the public-facing activities you’d like people to know about.
This section will only display on your public profile if you’ve added content.
You can update your external roles and responsibilities in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘+ Add content’ and then ‘Activity’, your ‘Personal’ tab and then ‘Activities’. Choose which activities you want to show on your public profile.
You can hide activities from your public profile. Set the visibility as 'Backend' to only show this information within Pure, or 'Confidential' to make it visible only to you.
Biography
Ramesh graduated in Medicine from the University of Southampton before specialising in Respiratory and General Medicine with particular clinical and research interests in asthma and allergy. He completed his DM thesis on the natural history of, and risk factors, for development of asthma and allergy in childhood through work on the Isle of Wight Birth Cohort (IOWBC).
Ramesh was appointed as fulltime NHS Consultant at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) in 2006 and in parallel as Honorary Senior Lecturer at UoS. Subsequently he led and significantly developed tertiary Severe Asthma and Allergy clinical services at UHS and wider collaborations such as the Wessex Asthma Network. In October 2018, Ramesh took up a formal academic appointment as Principal Research Fellow in Asthma and Allergy at UoS. In March 2022 this changed to an Associate Professor appointment. In August 2024 he was appointed as Professor. His research is based both at the Faculty of Medicine and at DHAARC and includes collaborations with colleagues at the San Diego-based La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, and BioMed Research Institute plus University California San Diego, the University of Memphis in the USA, University of Michigan, University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia and the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, Australia.
Ramesh is a clinical epidemiologist undertaking research in the natural history, phenotyping, endotyping, treatment and prevention of asthma and allergy. He has a particular focus on severe asthma and on multimorbidity in severe asthma.
He remains a Senior Co-Investigator in the IOWBC and multiple other DHAARC birth cohorts. He is also Chief Investigator for the Wessex AsThma CoHORT of difficult asthma (WATCH) study which he created within the tertiary severe asthma clinic at UHS to align clinical and research goals for patients with severe asthma. This study has attracted around £1.5 million of research income. He leads the Multimorbidity and Asthma Research Group at UoS. He also leads a large workstream on Multimorbidity in Severe Asthma within the pan-European SHARP collaboration which involves 27 European countries.
Ramesh has been co-investigator on 4 NIH grants related to epigenetics of severe asthma, T-cell epitopes in fungal asthma and epigenetics of childhood asthma. He was also Principal Investigator for an Asthma UK funded study to identify miRNAs as a diagnostic tool in asthma. He has published 117 Medline cited papers - h-index google scholar (currently 43); https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GX_wkD0AAAAJ&hl=en.
In addition to his research and clinical work, Ramesh is passionate about teaching. He leads the Allergic Airways Disease Module within the UoS Allergy MSC as well as the undergraduate 3rd year and 5th year Allergy SSU for medical students at Southampton and also delivers year 1 BM4 and BM5 teaching on Asthma.
Qualifications:
BM, University of Southampton 1994
MRCP, Royal College of Physicians (London) 1997
DM, University of Southampton 2003
FRCP, Royal College of Physicians (London) 2012
You can update your biography section in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select your ‘Personal’ tab then ‘Edit profile’. Under the heading, and ‘Curriculum and research description’, select ‘Add profile information’. In the dropdown menu, select - ‘Biography’. Aim for no more than 400 words.
This section will only appear if you enter the information into Pure (opens in a new tab).
Prizes
You can update this section in Pure (opens in a new tab). Select ‘+Add content’ and then ‘Prize’. using the ‘Prizes’ section.
You can choose to hide prizes from your public profile. Set the visibility as ‘Backend’ to only show this information within Pure, or ‘Confidential’ to make it visible only to you.