Professor David Conway
BSc PhD dipABRSM
Professor
of Biology
LSHTM
Keppel Street
London
WC1E 7HT
United Kingdom
Fax.
Associate Dean (Research) of ITD Faculty. David runs a research group conducting population genetic, experimental and epidemiological studies of malaria parasites. Based in London, he also works with colleagues in several countries in West Africa, as well as in Malaysia. He has served as Head of Department and was previously Head of Malaria Research Programme at the MRC Unit in The Gambia where he studied many aspects of the disease in relation to natural infection and transmission. Prior to that he also worked on other infectious diseases including trachoma and strongyloidiasis. He studied at the University of Nottingham and University of Edinburgh, and worked at Imperial College London before joining LSHTM. He has published over 200 research articles (Google Scholar Citations).
Affiliations
Centres
Teaching
David co-ordinates an MSc module on 'Pathogen Genomics' in the Summer Term which has run for ten consecutive years. He previously developed an MSc module entitled 'Genetics of Pathogens and Vectors' and ran this for nine years, and has also taught on other modules, and on the Distance Learning module on Malaria. He has taught externally at UCL, at the University of Ghana, on a Wellcome-Funded overseas workshop and on BBSRC-funded residential Summer Schools. He has supervised MSc research projects at LSHTM, and supervised BSc projects of students from Imperial College, UCL, and Kings College London. He served for six years as Departmental Research Degrees Co-ordinator, and has supervised 12 PhDs at LSHTM and co-supervised 5 registered elsewhere.
Research
David leads a research group with a focus on malaria, and is particularly interested in: (i) effects of natural selection on parasite targets of protective immune responses, (ii) effects of different epidemiological situations on parasite population genetic structures, including zoonotic as well as endemic transmission, (iii) naturally acquired immune responses and their relevance to protection, (iv) parasite transcriptome variation and erythrocyte invasion, (v) parasite asexual multiplication rates, (vi) parasite sexual commitment rate variation.
He is based in London, and has has spent considerable time overseas including six years as Head of the Malaria Research Programme at the MRC Laboratories in The Gambia, where he led work supported by grants from the MRC and several other funders. He has held 17 research grants at LSHTM (8 from the Wellcome Trust, 4 from the MRC, 3 from the EU including one from the ERC, and 2 from the Royal Society-Leverhulme Trust), 2 of which are current.
Selected Publications
