Areas of expertise
Respiratory infection, asthma, general respiratory medicine and general internal medicine.
Dr Boyton also has specialist expertise in chronic lung infection, non-CF bronchiectsis, primary ciliary dyskinesia, primary immunodeficiency, non-tuberculosis mycobacterial and aspergillus infection in the lung.
Research interests
Dr Boyton is head of the Lung Immunology Group in the Section of Infectious Disease and Immunity, Department of Medicine, Imperial College, London. The group is focused on understanding the role of innate and adaptive immunity in allergic and infectious inflammation in the lung. She is also a principal investigator in the Centre for Respiratory Infection, which is funded by the Wellcome Trust, and the Medical Research Council & Asthma UK Centre for Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma.
Training
She trained in medicine at Royal Free Hospital, London University, and then held a number of senior house officer and registrar posts at Royal Brompton Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital, Guys Hospital and the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, across a range of disciplines including respiratory, cardiology, renal, neurology, infectious disease and general internal medicine.
Dr Boyton was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship to study mechanisms of T cell activation in Th1 and Th2 responses at Imperial College London. Having been awarded her PhD, she then completed her clinical training at Royal Brompton, Royal Free, and St Mary’s Hospitals. She was then awarded an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship to develop inducible, lung targeted models of lung inflammation.
She established the Lung Immunology Group on the South Kensington campus of Imperial College London to study immune mechanisms in infectious and allergic lung inflammation and remodelling.
Educator
Dr Boyton is the postgraduate director for the prestigious four-year Masters/PhD training programme of the Medical Research Council & Asthma UK Centre for Allergic Mechanisms of Asthma.
Publications
Dr Boyton is on the editorial board of Clinical and Experimental Immunology.
Campbell JD; Buckland KF; McMillan SJ; Kearley J; Oldfield WLG; Stern LJ; Gronlund H; van Hage M; et al. (2009). Peptide immunotherapy in allergic asthma generates IL-10-dependent immunological tolerance associated with linked epitope suppression. J EXP MED. 206:1535-1547.
Ingram RJ; Isaacs JD; Kaur G; Lowther DE; Reynolds CJ; Boyton RJ; Collinge J; Jackson GS; et al. (2009). A role of cellular prion protein in programming T-cell cytokine responses in disease. FASEB J. 23:1672-1684.
Reynolds C; Barkans J; Clark P; Kariyawasam H; Altmann D; Kay B; Boyton R. (2009). Natural killer T cells in bronchial biopsies from human allergen challenge model of allergic asthma. J Allergy Clinical Immunology. 124:860-862.
Boyton RJ. (2009). Regulation of immunity in bronchiectasis. MED MYCOL. 47:S175-S182.
Boyton RJ; Smith J; Jones M; Reynolds C; Ozerovitch L; Chaudhry A; Wilson R; Rose M; et al. (008). Human leucocyte antigen class II association in idiopathic bronchiectasis, a disease of chronic lung infection, implicates a role for adaptive immunity. Clin Exp Immunol. 152:95-101.
Boyton RJ. (2008). Bronchiectasis. Medicine. 36:315-320.
Boyton R. (2008). The role of natural killer T cells in lung inflammation. Journal of Pathology. 214:276-282.
Boyton RJ; Altmann DM. (2007). Natural killer cells, killer immunoglobulin-like receptors and human leucocyte antigen class I in disease. Clin Exp Immunol. 149:1-8.
Reynolds C; Ozerovitch L; Wilsen R; Altmann D; Boyton R. (2007). Toll-like receptors 2 and 4 and innate immunity in neutrophilic asthma and idiopathic bronchiectasis. Thorax. 62:279.
Boyton RJ; Altmann DM; Wright A; Kon OM. (2007). Pulmonary infection with Cryptococcus neoformans in the face of underlying sarcoidosis. Respiration. 74:462-466.
Boyton RJ; Reynolds C; Wahid FN; Jones MG; Ozerovitch L; Ahmad T; Chaudhry A; Jewell DP; et al. (2006). IFN gamma and CXCR-1 gene polymorphisms in idiopathic bronchiectasis. Tissue Antigens. 68:325-330.
Griesenbach U; Boyton RJ; Somerton L; Garcia SE; Ferrari S; Owaki T; Ya-Fen Z; Geddes DM; et al. (2006). Effect of tolerance induction to immunodominant T-cell epitopes of Sendai virus on gene expression following repeat administration to lung. Gene Ther. 13:449-456.
Boyton RJ; Smith J; Ward R; Jones M; Ozerovitch L; Wilson R; Rose M; Trowsdale J; et al. (2006). HLA-C and killer cell immunoglobulin-like receptor genes in idiopathic bronchiectasis. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 173:327-333.
Altmann DM. (2006). Models of Sarcoidosis. Autoimmune Diseases. Drug Discovery Today: Disease Models. 3:21-25.
Boyton RJ; Davies S; Marden C; Fantino C; Reynolds C; Portugal K; Dewchand H; Altmann DM. (2005). Stat4-null non-obese diabetic mice: protection from diabetes and experimental allergic encephalomyelitis, but with concomitant epitope spread. Int Immunol. 17:1157-1165.
Boyton RJ. (005). Infectious lung complications in patients with HIV/AIDS. Curr Opin Pulm Med. 11:203-207.
Ellmerich S; Mycko M; Takacs K; Waldner H; Wahid FN; Boyton RJ; King RH; Smith PA; et al. (2005). High incidence of spontaneous disease in an HLA-DR15 and TCR transgenic multiple sclerosis model. J Immunol. 174:1938-1946.
Altmann D; Boyton R. (2005). Models of multiple sclerosis. Autoimmune diseases. Drug Discovery Today: Disease Models. 11:405-410.
Ellmerich S; Takacs K; Mycko M; Waldner H; Wahid F; Boyton RJ; Smith PA; Amor S; et al. (2004). Disease-related epitope spread in a humanized T cell receptor transgenic model of multiple sclerosis. Eur J Immunol. 34:1839-1848.
Boyton RJ; Altmann DM. (2004). Asthma: new developments in cytokine regulation. Clin Exp Immunol. 136:13-14.
Boyton RJ; Mitchell DM; Kon OM. (2004). Pneumocystis pneumonia in humans is caused by P jiroveci not P carinii THORAX. 59:83-84.
Altmann DM; Boyton RJ. (2003). Reciprocal conditioning: T cells as regulators of dendritic cell function. Immunology. 109:473-475.
Boyton RJ; Mitchell DM; Kon OM. (2003). The pulmonary physician in critical care * Illustrative case 5: HIV associated pneumonia. Thorax. 58:721-725.
Boyton RJ; Altmann DM. (2002). Is selection for TCR affinity a factor in cytokine polarization?. Trends Immunol. 23:526-529.
Boyton RJ; Zaccai N; Jones EY; Altmann DM. (1 Feb 2002). CD4 T cells selected by antigen under Th2 polarizing conditions favor an elongated TCR alpha chain complementarity-determining region 3. J Immunol. 168:1018-1027.
Boyton RJ; Openshaw PJ. (2002). Pulmonary defences to acute respiratory infection. Br Med Bull. 61:1-12.
Boyton RJ; Altmann DM. (2002). Transgenic models of autoimmune disease. Clin Exp Immunol. 127:4-11.
Boyton RJ; Lohmann T; Londei M; Kalbacher H; Halder T; Frater AJ; Douek DC; Leslie DG; et al. (Dec 1998). Glutamic acid decarboxylase T lymphocyte responses associated with susceptibility or resistance to type I diabetes: analysis in disease discordant human twins, non-obese diabetic mice and HLA-DQ transgenic mice. Int Immunol. 10:1765-1776.
Chapters in books
Boyton R; Sander C. Respiratory Infections in HIV positive patients. In Respiratory Infections. 1st:186-220. Sethi (ed). Informa Healthcare USA, Inc, Informa Healthcare USA Inc. 52 Vanderbilt Ave New York, NY 10017 (2010).
Wilson R; Boyton R. Bronchiectasis. In Encyclopedia of Respiratory Medicine. Laurent GL (ed); Shapiro S (ed). Elsevier Limited, Oxford, UK (2006).
Boyton R. Lung Defence. In Encyclopedia of Respiratory Medicine. Laurent GL (ed); Shapiro S (ed). Elsevier Limited, Oxford, UK (2006).
Boyton R. Notch. In Encyclopedia of Respiratory Medicine. Laurent GL (ed); Shapiro S (ed). Elsevier Limited, Oxford, UK (2006).
Boyton R. Pneumonia: Fungal. In Encyclopedia of Respiratory Medicine. Laurent GL (ed); Shapiro S (ed). Elsevier Limited, Oxford, UK (2006).
Boyton RJ; Mitchell D; Kon OM. HIV associated pneumonia in intensive care. In Respiratory Management in Critical Care. 120-124. Griffiths M (ed); Evans T (ed). BMJ Publishing Group, London, UK (2004).
Boyton RJ; Openshaw PJ. Animal models of viral respiratory infections. In Respiratory infections in allergy and asthma. 279-298. Johnston SL (ed); Papadopoulos NG (ed). Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, USA (2003).
Altmann DM; Ellmerich S; Boyton RJ. Human leucocyte antigen (HLA) transgenic mice for the analysis of autoimmune disease. In Infection and Immunity. 3-14. Friedland J (ed); Lightstone E (ed). Harwood Academic Publishers, Reading, UK (2003).
Altmann D M; Perraudeau M; Douek D C; Boyton R J. Analysing MHC class II processing and presentation: from processed avidin to H2-0 modulation and T cell receptor signals. In Autoimmunity and Emerging Diseases.
1-11. Steinman L (ed). CSED (2001).
