David Mabey

Professor of Communicable Diseases

David Mabey is a physician specialising in Infectious and Tropical Diseases. After training in the UK, he went to work at the Medical Research Council unit in The Gambia, West Africa in 1978, and was in charge of clinical services there from 1982-86. He joined the School as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Clinical Sciences in 1986, and was made Professor of Communicable Diseases in 1994. He is an Honorary Consultant Physician at the Hospital for Tropical Diseases in London. He was head of the Clinical Research Unit in the School from 1995-2002, and has been Director of the Wellcome Trust Bloomsbury Centre for Clinical Tropical Medicine http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/wbc/ since 1995. He was responsible for the Knowledge Programme on HIV/AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections, funded at the School by the Department for International Development http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/dfid/aids from 1991-2007. He was Director of the WHO Collaborating centre for the Prevention and Control of Sexually Transmitted Infections at the School from 2003-9, and has been Chair of the Field Trials Committee of the STD Diagnostics Initiative at WHO/TDR since 2001 . He is a member of the WHO Global Alliance against trachoma, and has sat on the Trachoma Expert Committee of the International Trachoma Initiative.

Affiliation

Teaching

David Mabey ran the DTM&H course at the School from 1988 to 1996. He set up the MSc course in Sexually Transmitted Diseases with colleagues at UCL, and started a study unit in the Control of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) in 1996. He teaches on the DTM&H course and the MScs in Control of Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine and International Health.

Research

David Mabey became interested in trachoma, caused by ocular infection with Chlamydia trachomatis, and in genital C. trachomatis infection, while working in the Gambia. Since the early 1980s he has continued to do research on both trachoma and sexually transmitted infections, with many collaborators both within and outside the School. Most of his field work has been done in The Gambia and Tanzania, and he also runs a laboratory at the School where he has worked on the pathogenesis of and immune response to C. trachomatis infection. He is particularly interested in the link between HIV infection and other STIs, and worked with Prof. Richard Hayes on the Mwanza intervention trial, which showed that it was possible to reduce the transmission of HIV by improved case management of other STIs at the primary health care level. In recent years he has become particularly interested in the control of blinding trachoma, and, with Prof. Robin Bailey, has established one of the largest research groups in the world working on various aspects of the disease.

Research areas

  • HIV/AIDS
  • Infectious disease
  • Sexual and reproductive health
  • Sexually transmitted disease

Disciplines

  • Epidemiology
  • Immunology
  • Medicine

Other interests

  • MARCH
Back to top