Can you begin by providing a brief overview of your investigations into the immune system? My early work was important in shifting medical focus onto the important impact of each individual’s early environment on the developing immune system, particularly maternal health and the environment in pregnancy. We showed that children who develop allergies in the first years of life have differences in their immune function at birth. Before that, most of the focus was on postnatal risk factors. As time has gone on, my work has become more holistic. I credit my interest in the immune system as what encouraged me to start looking at everything in a more integrated way. The immune system has a critical influence on the development and function of virtually every tissue and organ in the body. Becoming an immunologist has provided me with an ideal platform to engage people across many fields of medicine; in fact, sharing solutions to the modern pandemic of chronic inflammatory diseases is a core theme of my latest book Origins: Early Life Solutions to the Modern Health Crisis. |
In what ways do you use your career to uphold your belief that an integrated, collaborative approach is best?
A large focus of my career has been on disease prevention. This encourages long-range thinking and advocates strategies that might not have immediate impact, but can have long- term benefits for individuals and the community into the next generations. For example, improving our environment in early life can benefit all aspects of our long-term physical and mental health. Moreover, it will improve health and longevity of our children. This means we need to apply the same long-range vision to the adverse impact of rapid industrial growth on human health and the environment. While economic expansion is in apparent conflict with environmental conservation, more responsible management of natural resources will not only allow more sustained development, it will mean better health for humans and their environment in the future.
It’s all interconnected. That’s the theme of my research and my broader philosophy on life. The health of humans, the environment, our social fabric and economic health are interdependent. I believe there needs to be stronger focus on finding common ground with more mutually beneficial cross-sectoral approaches that transcend competing interests. Messages of unity and collaboration must come from science and medicine as strongly as other sectors.
A large focus of my career has been on disease prevention. This encourages long-range thinking and advocates strategies that might not have immediate impact, but can have long- term benefits for individuals and the community into the next generations. For example, improving our environment in early life can benefit all aspects of our long-term physical and mental health. Moreover, it will improve health and longevity of our children. This means we need to apply the same long-range vision to the adverse impact of rapid industrial growth on human health and the environment. While economic expansion is in apparent conflict with environmental conservation, more responsible management of natural resources will not only allow more sustained development, it will mean better health for humans and their environment in the future.
It’s all interconnected. That’s the theme of my research and my broader philosophy on life. The health of humans, the environment, our social fabric and economic health are interdependent. I believe there needs to be stronger focus on finding common ground with more mutually beneficial cross-sectoral approaches that transcend competing interests. Messages of unity and collaboration must come from science and medicine as strongly as other sectors.
How can this approach help create solutions to humanity’s many challenges?
Most of our challenges are rooted in greed, self-interest and the loss of communal identity – all at the expense of any meaningful collective vision. This is reflected in our global health crisis, environmental degradation, economic and social instability, and growing inequity of resource allocation. Our current economic system supports and perpetuates these challenges, and policies to overcome social inequity and injustice are not able to cut through this. Our collective activities are threatening the ‘health’ of our environment, society and physical and mental health. We have reached a point where it is irresponsible not to act. We need ‘self-help’ on a global scale!
What impact would you like to see your work have on society?
Though my work is technically about health, it is really about the future. I want to bring greater awareness of the critical importance of improving conditions in early life for long-term health and longevity. On a broader level, I want to bring people together, and empower and inspire others to act, and find opportunity and common ground – all to facilitate positive change. It is about building a collaborative mindset so we can improve the health of our own future and the next generation’s in every regard. If my role is only to remind people of what they can do – that every choice they make can make a difference – I will be happy. Is this realistic? Idealistic? Perhaps both, but if we don’t aim for this we cannot hope to achieve it.
Do you have any final comments?
Social evolution can occur by slow and gradual increments that are almost invisible until change has occurred. That is not what is needed here. In the face of so many vast challenges, we need to achieve a more active, concerted, conscious and precipitous frame-shift. To make this leap, we need a strong sense of collective motivation. We have the technological capacity to improve the future if we act now. We’ve never been more connected than we are now. This is truly a time where we can hope that new knowledge and a greater awareness might bring new vision and a frame-shift in attitudes and thinking. That is what we need.
Most of our challenges are rooted in greed, self-interest and the loss of communal identity – all at the expense of any meaningful collective vision. This is reflected in our global health crisis, environmental degradation, economic and social instability, and growing inequity of resource allocation. Our current economic system supports and perpetuates these challenges, and policies to overcome social inequity and injustice are not able to cut through this. Our collective activities are threatening the ‘health’ of our environment, society and physical and mental health. We have reached a point where it is irresponsible not to act. We need ‘self-help’ on a global scale!
What impact would you like to see your work have on society?
Though my work is technically about health, it is really about the future. I want to bring greater awareness of the critical importance of improving conditions in early life for long-term health and longevity. On a broader level, I want to bring people together, and empower and inspire others to act, and find opportunity and common ground – all to facilitate positive change. It is about building a collaborative mindset so we can improve the health of our own future and the next generation’s in every regard. If my role is only to remind people of what they can do – that every choice they make can make a difference – I will be happy. Is this realistic? Idealistic? Perhaps both, but if we don’t aim for this we cannot hope to achieve it.
Do you have any final comments?
Social evolution can occur by slow and gradual increments that are almost invisible until change has occurred. That is not what is needed here. In the face of so many vast challenges, we need to achieve a more active, concerted, conscious and precipitous frame-shift. To make this leap, we need a strong sense of collective motivation. We have the technological capacity to improve the future if we act now. We’ve never been more connected than we are now. This is truly a time where we can hope that new knowledge and a greater awareness might bring new vision and a frame-shift in attitudes and thinking. That is what we need.