Contact details
Professor Ajit Lalvani MA MBBS DM FRCP
Chair in Infectious Diseases
National Heart and Lung Institute
Tel: +44 (0)20 7594 0883
Email:
Professor Ajit Lalvani
Professor Lalvani is an infectious disease physician and clinical scientist investigating the host response to tuberculosis.
Professor Lalvani’s research began as an MRC Clinical Training Fellow with Adrian Hill in Oxford. His doctoral thesis, Immunity to Intracellular Pathogens, comprised major contributions to design and evaluation of novel malaria vaccines and his ground-breaking study on influenza generated fundamental new insights into CD8 T-cell memory. He next focused on tuberculosis immunology identifying, for the first time, HLA-class I-restricted CD8 T-cells in human tuberculosis.
He became an independent investigator in 1998 when, as Clinical Lecturer in Oxford, he raised Wellcome Trust and other project grants to establish his own research team, the Tuberculosis Research Unit. This culminated in several seminal proof-of-principle papers on his newly-developed technique of T cell-based diagnosis (RD1-ELISpot) for tuberculosis infection.
In 2001, he secured a Wellcome Senior Clinical Research Fellowship. Through innovatively-designed immunoepidemiological studies in over 5,000 participants in 8 countries his research team demonstrated the superiority of his new T-cell-based approach over the tuberculin skin test, establishing it as the new reference standard for diagnosing latent tuberculosis infection. This included real-time investigation of Britain’s largest institutional tuberculosis outbreak at a school resulting in a hugely influential fast-track Lancet article. The Group also demonstrated the clinical advantages of RD1-ELISpot where it is most needed: in HIV-coinfected adults and children with tuberculosis in sub-Saharan Africa. The Tuberculosis Research Unit next discovered an unexpected mechanism of action of the BCG vaccine, which will influence the development of new tuberculosis vaccines and, in 2006, was the first to identify natural regulatory T-cells in tuberculosis.
Last year Professor Lalvani successfully renewed his Wellcome Senior Fellowship via Imperial. His new programme probes the fundamental immunological processes governing the host-pathogen equilibrium in tuberculosis while maintaining a strong translational theme to develop clinically-useful biomarkers of key stages in the natural history of tuberculosis infection.
Professor Lalvani's team has invented, validated and delivered a genuinely useful new tool into clinical practice. This research has been directly translated from the laboratory bench to the bedside and is now part of public health policy. The latest NICE guidelines on tuberculosis control, as well as several European guidelines, endorse T-cell-based blood testing for latent tuberculosis infection, the first practical advance in this area for over 100 years. The growing impact of his work on global public health was recognised in 2005 by the award of the Scientific Prize of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.
Professor Lalvani’s ongoing translational research into TB immunology has great potential to generate further advances in screening, diagnosis and monitoring of TB infection. The Tuberculosis Research Unit thus continues to focus on systematic translation of its cutting-edge scientific biomedical innovations from bench to bedside. Once recruitment is complete, the multi-disciplinary Group will comprise 10 members, including post-doctoral scientists, clinical training fellows, research nurses, research assistants and graduate students. All members of Professor Lalvani's group are equally encouraged to discover, develop, test and implement innovative ideas as part of a team. Fostering intellectual curiosity and rigorous scientific thinking are key principles for the Group as a whole. The Group has several major international collaborations in Italy, Germany, the USA, India, Turkey, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The Tuberculosis Research Unit is funded by The Wellcome Trust, The World Health Organization, The Medical Research Council, and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
