TK is a clinical academic with international recognition for his expertise in allergic diseases. His clinical and research interest in allergic diseases stemmed from working with top international experts in University of Southampton including Professor Sir Stephen Holgate and Late Professor Anthony Frew and a number of UK and international Fellows. This gave him an opportunity to gain basic knowledge and skills in the application of clinical, physiological, laboratory and qualitative methodology in a multi-professional environment.
This was further complimented by wide clinical experience in general and specialist allergy and clinical immunology. His doctoral work gave him an opportunity to conduct controlled exposures to air pollutants, allergen challenges, bronchoscopy, sputum induction and immunohistochemistry. These skills enabled him to pursue novel research to unravel acute inflammatory responses in the airway lining fluid and bronchial mucosa in seminal studies and contribute to clinical trials in allergic rhinitis and asthma that were published in high impact journals.
After re-locating to Birmingham in 2005, he established (clinical lead: 2005-19) a comprehensive multi-disciplinary regional allergy service and research which has gained national (RCP; 2016 and 2021) and international recognition (WAO; 2020) as a Centre of Excellence. This Centre of Excellence status was successfully renewed for another term for 2024-2028 as published in an announcement in April 2024.
He served as a substantive NHS consultant between 2005-22 and held a honorary status with University of Birmingham. He was promoted as Honorary Professor in 2016 and to substantive Chair in 2022.
TK is the lead author for the BSACI guideline on hymenoptera venom immunotherapy and has co-authored guidelines on penicillin allergy (x2), allergen-specific immunotherapy and pollen-food syndrome.
His team conducted a number of important observational studies in anaphylaxis presenting to emergency unit and in a peri-operative setting including validation of international consensus equation for mast cell activation, highlighted the burden of inaccurate penicillin allergy labels in secondary care and development of safe and stratified pathways for de-labelling, characterised hypersensitivity reactions to anti-TB drugs and described the disparities in immune-mediated diseases amongst ethnic minority groups.
TK leads an international professional network in LMICs to phenotype and endotype allergic rhinitis and asthma and characterise drug allergies.
He contributes to allergy postgraduate education in the UK (Birmingham, Southampton, London), India and Sri Lanka.