Professor Alex Richter MBChB, MRCP, FRCPath, MD

Alex Richter

Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy
Director of the Clinical Immunology Services
Professor and Honorary Consultant in Clinical Immunology

Contact details

Telephone
+44(0)121 414 4069
Fax
+44(0)121 414 3069
Email
a.g.richter@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy
College of Medicine and Health
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Alex has been leading a team of experts from the University of Birmingham to develop a SARS-CoV-2 antibody test focussed on improving detection in individuals with mild COVID-19 disease. In collaboration with The Binding Site this is being commercialised.

In collaboration with University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and Birmingham Dental Hospital this test has been used to investigate seroprevalence in NHS medical and dental staff, determine antibody status for Oxford vaccine study and determine COVID -19 to be the cause of a newly emerged multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children.

Qualifications

  • MBChB (Birmingham)
  • MRCP (London)
  • FRCPath
  • MD (Birmingham)

Biography

Professor Alex Richter earned her undergraduate medical degree from the University of Birmingham (UoB) and undertook her junior doctor training within the British Army. After 10 years military service she returned to Birmingham to undertake a doctorate exploring the immunology of pulmonary vasculitis and interstitial lung disease. She undertook specialist training in Clinical Immunology and was appointed Clinical Lecturer at UoB to complete her training. She established clinical immunology and allergy services at University Hospitals Birmingham, where she is now a Consultant Clinical Immunologist and won a Best in Care award in 2018.

She is Professor of Clinical Immunology and Director of the Clinical Immunology Services. Her research interests are focussed around secondary immunodeficiency and understanding vaccination responses.

Teaching

Alex undertakes regular teaching at the University and clinical teaching and lecturing on her research areas.

  • Awarded the 2019 REME Teaching Award (Recognising Excellence in Medical Education).
  • Examiner for the Royal College of Pathologists.
  • MBChB
    • 2nd year Immunity, infection and haematology – module lead
    • 3rd year Allergy Lecturer
  • BMedSc
    • Clinical Pathology - Lecturer for Year 2 and Year 3
    • Clinical Sciences - Lecturer
  • MSc in Immunology and Immunotherapy – Lecturer

Postgraduate supervision

Doctorates

  • MD – Prevalence of MGUS in acute admissions
  • PhD – Role of B cells in HIV
  • PhD - The role of B cells in non small cell lung cancer (current)
  • PhD - The Immunology of recurrent miscarriage (current)
  • DClinSci - Prevalence of secondary immunodeficiency in stem cell transplant recovery (current)

Other

  • Regularly supervisors masters and batchelor degree projects
  • Educational supervisor for clinical lecturer and academic clinical fellow

If you are interesting in studying any of these subject areas please contact Professor Alex Richter directly, or for any general doctoral research enquiries, please email mds-gradschool@contacts.bham.ac.uk.

For a full list of available Doctoral Research opportunities, please visit our Doctoral Research programme listings.

Research

Research interests include the emerging field of secondary immunodeficiency; developing diagnostics, exploring vaccination responses and management of patients with an immunodeficiency secondary to either malignancy or prolonged immunosuppression for an inflammatory disorder. For many cancers and inflammatory conditions, infection is one of the most significant causes of death and optimising and supporting the immune system can potentially reduce this risk.

During the SARS-CoV 2 pandemic Alex lead a team that developed a high sensitivity antibody test that was commercialised by The Binding Site. This assay was used to establish seroprevalence in a large staff cohort study at UHB (COCO), a Birmingham dental cohort and a haemodialysis cohort. Alex has helped establish the Birmingham Turnkey laboratory to contribute to the pillar 2 testing effort.

Current grants

  • 2020: Confidence in Concept MRC: Development of an annual influenza serotype antibody ELISA
  • 2020: COPE-Birmingham: The contribution of occupational exposures to risk of COVID-19 and approaches to control among healthcare workers. DHSC/UKRI COVID-19 Rapid Response Initiative
  • 2020: Development of antibody-based testing for SARS-CoV-2. Proximity to Discovery, MRC
  • 2020: Developing a point of care diagnostic tool for COVID-19 for use in LMIC settings. Institute for Global Innovation (IGI)
  • 2019: Investigating immunity in post-transplant LPD in a clinical trial cohort. Rosetree foundation. Co-investigator.
  • 2019: Treating plagues – public engagement grant from BSI. Co-investigator
  • 2018: Does hospitalisation of older patients with severe community acquired pneumonia and sepsis lead to long term immunoparesis? MRC (MR/S002782/1): Co- investigator

Other activities

University of Birmingham

  • Director of the Clinical Immunology Services
  • Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy executive committee
  • ECMC Management Group
  • BactiVac Network Management Board - £2.2 million Bacterial Vaccines (BactiVac) network

External appointments

  • Myeloma UK -  Early Diagnosis Steering Committee
  • UK Primary Immunodeficiency Network UKPIN – Trustee
  • NIHR CRF specialist advisory committee at UHB

Publications

Recent publications

Article

BactiVac Network, MacLennan, CA, Cunningham, AF, Dean, JE, Pope, S, Balandyte-Shergill, E, Pillaye, J, Greenwood, BM & Adegbola, RA 2025, 'BactiVac, the Bacterial Vaccines Network', Vaccine, vol. 57, 127210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2025.127210

Davenport, C, Richter, A, Hillier, B, Scandrett, K, Agarwal, R, Baldwin, SW, Kale, AU, Alderman, J, Macdonald, T & Deeks, JJ 2025, 'Direct-to-consumer self-tests sold in the UK in 2023: cross sectional review of information on intended use, instructions for use, and post-test decision making', BMJ, vol. 390, e085546. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2025-085546

Hillier, B, Deeks, JJ, Alderman, J, Kale, AU, Macdonald, T, Baldwin, SW, Scandrett, K, Agarwal, R, Richter, A & Davenport, C 2025, 'Direct-to-consumer self-tests sold in the UK in 2023: cross sectional review of regulation and evidence of performance', BMJ, vol. 390 , e085547. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj-2025-085547

Kronsteiner, B, Govender, M, Liu, C, Dijokaite-Guraliuc, A, Ali, M, Hill, J, Zewdie, M, Cross, A, Austin, J, Watts, A, Angyal, A, Hornsby, H, Abraham, P, Adele, S, Moulik, S, Harte, J, Hargreaves, A, Jiwa, Y, Selvaraj, M, Stafford, L, Jamsen, A, Dobson, SL, Sampaio, S, Halstead, C, Steel, A, Longet, S, Faustini, SE, Moore, SC, Mongkolsapaya, J, Wootton, DG, Thaventhiran, JED, Hopkins, S, Hall, V, Jeffery, K, Barnes, E, Duncan, CJA, Payne, RP, Richter, AG, de Silva, TI, Turtle, L, Screaton, GR, Klenerman, P, Carroll, M, Dunachie, SJ & PITCH Consortium 2025, 'Dynamic impact of bivalent COVID-19 vaccine boosters on systemic and mucosal antibody and T cell immunity', Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-28310-0

Faustini, SE, Quinn, LM, Hoque, M, Young, S, Bentley, C, Kwok, HF, Plant, T, Litchfield, I, Boardman, F, Greenfield, SM, Narendran, P & Richter, AG 2025, 'Establishing the performance and acceptability of dried blood spot sampling to screen for islet-specific autoantibodies', Diabetic Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1111/dme.70071

Bagkou Dimakou, D, Tamblyn, J, Lissauer, D & Richter, A 2025, 'Evaluation of peripheral NK tests offered to women with recurrent pregnancy loss and a search for novel candidate biomarkers', Journal of reproductive immunology, vol. 169, 104522. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jri.2025.104522

Dimbleby, B, Greenway, W, Burns, SO, Richter, AG & Shields, AM 2025, 'Health Care Utilisation in a Cohort of Patients with Primary and Secondary Antibody Deficiency in the United Kingdom', Journal of Clinical Immunology, vol. 45, no. 1, 18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10875-024-01809-3

Stacey, MJ, Ferentinos, P, Koivula, F, Parsons, IT, Gifford, RM, Snape, D, Nicholson-Little, A, Faustini, S, Walsh, NP, Lamb, LE, O'Shea, MK, Richter, AG, Greeves, JP, O’Hara, J & Woods, D 2025, 'Influence of military preventive policy for recruit training on COVID-19 seroconversion: the IMPACT-COVID-19 study', BMJ Military Health. https://doi.org/10.1136/military-2024-002940, https://doi.org/10.1136/military-2024-002940

Peters, NE, Shields, AM, Hambleton, S & Richter, AG 2025, 'Learning from inborn errors of immunity and secondary immune deficiencies about vaccine immunogenicity, efficacy and safety', Clinical and Experimental Immunology. https://doi.org/10.1093/cei/uxaf059

Fennell, É, Taylor, GS, Leahy, CI, Ross, AM, Reynolds, G, Perry, T, Youd, E, Skidmore, J, Ramzi, R, Darwish, R, Hunter, KJ, Willcox, BE, Jermann, P, Arif Jahangir, C, Rahman, A, Gallagher, WM, Nikulina, N, Ben Cheikh, B, Braubach, O, Mayer, AT, Young, LS, Grammatopoulos, D, Faustini, S, Richter, A, Dowell, AC, Venith, T, Thein, OS, Parekh, D, Belchamber, KBR, Thickett, DR, Scott, A, Attanoos, R, Mundo, L, Lazzi, S, Leoncini, L, Leopold, G, Steven, N, Marie, J, Sand, B, Karsdal, MA, Julie Leeming, D, Dojcinov, S, Culhane, A, Murray, PG & Pugh, MR 2025, 'Multi-omic spatial profiling reveals the unique SARS-CoV-2 lung microenvironment and collagen VI as a predictive biomarker in severe COVID-19', The European respiratory journal. https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.01699-2023

Bagkou Dimakou, D, Peters, NE, Burns, SO, Richter, AG & Shields, AM 2025, 'Serum sBCMA in primary and secondary antibody deficiency', Clinical and Experimental Immunology. https://doi.org/10.1093/cei/uxaf065

Muter, J, Kong, C-S, Nebot, MT, Tryfonos, M, Vrljicak, P, Brighton, PJ, B. Dimakou, D, Vickers, M, Yoshihara, H, Ott, S, Tan, BK, Bennett, PR, Quenby, S, Richter, A, Van de Velde, H, Lucas, ES, Rawlings, TM & Brosens, JJ 2025, 'Stalling of the endometrial decidual reaction determines the recurrence risk of miscarriage', Science Advances, vol. 11, no. 26, eadv1988. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv1988

Faustini, SE, Backhouse, C, Duggal, NA, Toellner, KM, Harvey, R, Drayson, MT, Lord, JM & Richter, AG 2025, 'Time of day of vaccination does not influence antibody responses to pneumococcal and annual influenza vaccination in a cohort of healthy older adults', Vaccine, vol. 49, 126770. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2025.126770

Letter

Faustini, SE, Jones, S, Green, CA, Otter, AD, Richter, AG & Heaney, JLJ 2025, 'Developing accessible and affordable tests to support mpox immunosurveillance and vaccine studies', Emerging Microbes and Infections, vol. 14, no. 1, 2576581. https://doi.org/10.1080/22221751.2025.2576581

Review article

Richter, A 2025, 'Current experience with manual push subcutaneous immunoglobulin (SCIg) in patients with immune deficiencies', Immunological Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1080/25785826.2025.2515333

View all publications in research portal