I am an Assistant Professor at LSHTM, NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Paediatric Infectious Diseases and a paediatric registrar in the North, Central and East London Deanery.My research focuses on alleviating the immense burden of infectious diseases in early life. I aim to identify low-cost, broadly implementable strategies to reduce neonatal infections through a combination of basic science and clinical intervention research.
My work to date has centred around the possibility of harnessing the non-specific beneficial effects of vaccinations to enhance protection against unrelated infections. I have an MA(Oxon) in Infection and Immunity from the University of Oxford and the Diploma in Tropical Mediciane and International Health and Masters in Tropical Medicine and International Health from LSHTM. I conducted my PhD as part of a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellowship, at MRC/UVRI and LSHTM Uganda Research Unit, under the supervision of Dr Stephen Cose and Professor Hazel Dockrell.
Affiliations
Teaching
I am Module Organiser for the Distance Learning Module on Tuberculosis. I provide teaching on the Newborn, Infant and Child Health module for both the East African and London-based Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene courses. I am a personal tutor on the MSc in Tropical Medicine and International Health. I have previously supervised both Bachelors and Masters projects and would be delighted to be contacted by anybody interested in summer projects in the field of neonatal immunity and infections.
Research
My PhD explored the potential for BCG to clinically protect neonates against infections other than tuberculosis, and investigated the immunological mechanisms underlying such effects. To accomplish this I conducted a randomised controlled trial comparing Ugandan neonates randomised to receive BCG vaccination on day 1 of life, with those randomised to BCG at 6 weeks of age. This trial showed significant reductions in all-cause infectious presentations in BCG vaccinated infants, likely mediated through epigenetic reprogramming of the innate immune system. This suggests that prioritising BCG vaccination on day 1 of life in high morbidity settings, could lead to major reductions in the global burden of neonatal infections.
Ongoing work from my PhD trial includes studies looking at the impact of BCG on mucosal immunity and the microbiome, as well as investigation of the effect of parental BCG priming on the non-specific effects of BCG. I aim to expand this work post-doctorally to investigate whether BCG may be used as an immunotherapeutic in highly vulnerable populations in neonatal intensive care units.
Other areas of research interest include the impact of differing neonatal vaccination schedules on the inflammatory-iron axis and the effects of maternal-neonatal nutrition on the neonatal immune system.
Selected Publications
