ProfessorDariusArmstrong-James

Summary

Darius Armstrong-James is a Professor of Infectious Diseases and Medical Mycology in the Department of Microbiology, Imperial College London and honorary consultant physician in infectious diseases and medical mycology at Imperial College Healthcare and the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals at Guy's and St. Thomas'. 

He initially studied Trypanosomal peroxidases with John Kelly and David Horn at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine before  He went on to undertaking a PhD at Imperial with Ken Haynes, Tom Rogers and Elaine Bignell focussing on the systems biology of fungal host environmental adaptation. He was subsequently awarded a MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship undertaken in the Wellcome Centre for Molecular Microbiology and Infection, including time spent at Duke University mentored by John Perfect, to unravel the mechanistic basis for fungal immunodeficiency in organ transplantation. This lead to the discovery of a novel endosomal Toll-like receptor pathway linking innate immune sensing to the calcineurin pathway and the description of a novel fungally-induced form of macrophage cell death which he coined “Metaforosis”.  

In recent years his group have developed a major interest in the mechanistic basis for clinical host-pathogen interactions, focussing on the interplay between pathogen genomics and diversity and host systems immunology in the context of underlying clinical disease states. Current cohort-based multi-centre clinical studies are focussed on using systems immunology approach to develop novel immunotherapeutic approaches in cystic-fibrosis-related pulmonary aspergillosis and understanding the immunological basis for allograft rejection in lung transplant recipients developing pulmonary aspergillosis. Within this context his group are increasingly interested in poly-microbial interactions in the airway, working with Professor Jane Davies at NHLI on Aspergillus-Pseudomonas interactions and Brian Robertson and Professor Carlton Evans in Infectious Diseases on Aspergillus-mycobacterial interactions.  

He  leads the Imperial College Network of Excellence in Fungal Science (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/fungal-science-network/)and the Cystic Fibrosis Strategic Research Centre in Fungal Immunotherapy (www.TrIFIC.org). He has developed a strong collaborative research program with Professor Matt Fisher in the School of Public Health focussed on fungal population genomics and antimicrobial resistance, funded by numerous awards over the last few year. 

Darius is strongly committed to the development of medical mycology clinically, establishing the anti-fungal stewardship service at Imperial College Healthcare in 2012 and the Royal Brompton Hospital Fungal Disease Service in 2014, and contributing to numerous national and international working parties and guidelines groups for human fungal diseases. 

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