Deborah Cunninghame Graham

Dr Deborah Cunninghame Graham is a Senior Lecturer in Molecular Medicine and Senior Tutor for Molecular Genetics at King’s College London, within the Department of Medical & Molecular Genetics. She leads doctoral student welfare initiatives and serves as the department’s Postgraduate Coordinator. Her research focuses on the genetic basis of autoimmune diseases, particularly Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), exploring genetic variants, functional genomics, and immune pathways.

Education: BSc in Applied Biology (University of Hull), PhD in Molecular Cell Biology (King’s College Hospital). Postdoctoral work at Imperial College London before joining King’s in 2010.

Research interests include the role of Ikaros family transcription factors (IKZF1/Aiolos), interferon signaling, and the OX40 co-stimulatory pathway. She employs multi-omic approaches combining lab-based and bioinformatic methods to annotate risk loci in autoimmune diseases.

Recent work emphasizes X chromosome inactivation skewing in lupus, genetic risk factors for SLE severity, and the interplay between autoimmune genetics and infections like COVID-19. Her lab contributes to international consortia studying autoimmune genetics across populations.

Collaborations include projects on Takayasu arteritis, lupus nephritis, and sex-biased autoimmune susceptibilities. She advises on molecular mechanisms linking genetic variants to disease pathogenesis and mentors students in immunogenomics and epigenetic studies.