Nexxus Scotland

Liew, Foo Yew 'Eddy'

Gardiner Professor of Immunology; Head of Division, Nitric Oxide and Cytokines in Infection and Autoimmunity; Director, Glasgow Biomedical Research Centre 

Professor Eddy Liew is unique in the West of Scotland's life science community. A highly regarded and hugely experienced figure in the area of inflammation research, particularly in relation to rheumatoid arthritis and asthma, Prof Liew took the unusual career path of spending a large part of his career in industry before moving into academia.

Before joining the University of Glasgow as Gardiner Professor of Immunology in 1991, Prof Liew was at the helm of immunology research at the Beckenham, Kent, facility of pharmaceutical giants Wellcome for 14 years.

It was this real-time experience the University was keen to harness, and Prof Liew's appointment has proved a valuable one. He was brought in to lead the University's immunology department, and has done so with aplomb; the department improved from 3 to the top 5* rating in the Research Assessment Exercise within five years of his arrival.

Prof Liew's research interests lie primarily in cytokines; the messengers of cells in the body responsible for controlling the body's immune response. This area of research is of significant importance in understanding the body's inflammatory responses, which can lead to rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.

Prof Liew has made significant inroads into the understanding of how these conditions occur. Initially, he studied the role of nitric oxide (NO) in defence against the intracellular parasite Leishmania, responsible for disfiguring ulcers, amongst other things. This work ultimately has led Prof Liew to his current research; the study of a group of cytokines known as interleukins.

At a practical level, Prof Liew's work could be of major significance to people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and asthma. Given the prevalence of these two conditions in the West of Scotland, and indeed the country as a whole, any developments in this area could provide massive relief to tens of thousands of people.

Prof Liew's current focus is on finding new therapies for both of these conditions; because although they are symptomatically-different diseases, both are brought about by the inflammatory response of the body, and it is this response which Prof Liew is seeking to control.

He says: "At the same time as trying to find new therapeutic drugs, there have been several new molecules discovered over the years and we have been able to look at their therapeutic potential and if they attack obvious targets."

There are several promising lines of research currently ongoing. Together with his former student and current key colleague, Prof Iain McInnes, Prof Liew discovered that a cytokine known as interleukin 15 (IL-15) is closely associated with rheumatoid arthritis. Anti-IL-15 antibody has just successfully completed phase II clinical trial in treating rheumatoid arthritis.

Although a final, approved drug may be several years away, the commercial possibilities of Prof Liew's work are vast.

"This is a very exciting development for us, not just in terms of therapeutic benefit but in the commercial sense too," says Prof Liew. That could be putting it mildly; a new treatment which blocks the response of a cytokine known as TNF-Alpha, also involved in arthritis, has come onto the market. The market value of this drug is in the region of $4 billion a year."

But this isn't just a case of jumping on a commercially-lucrative bandwagon. Anti-TNF is only effective in 70 per cent of rheumatoid arthritis patients, and of those only about 20 per cent will feel highly significant benefits, so the possibility exists that, if successful, anti-IL-15 antibody could be superior to Amgen's anti-TNF-Alpha drug.

It seems fitting, then, that someone of Prof Liew's standing should be at the forefront of new developments to cement the West of Scotland's position as a serious player in the life science arena.

Prof Liew is the founding director of the new Glasgow Biomedical Research Centre, which houses 300 scientists in 35 internationally-recognised research groups. The funding for this building came from the highly competitive Joint Infra-structural Fund set up some years ago by the Wellcome Trust and the Office of Science and Technology. Prof Liew led a group of leading Glasgow biomedical scientists in this, the only successful bid in Scotland for a major new building.

"This centre will cement Glasgow and the West of Scotland's place in the major league of life science," says Prof Liew. "It's a superb example of what is usually called from bench to bedside; the research and development capability this centre will give us will be unsurpassed in Scotland."

"The increased interaction between the various different areas of medicine will be of benefit to everyone. Glasgow has a tremendous history of medical research and can undoubtedly hold its own in the international league."

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