Respiratory Infection

Respiratory pathogens, including tuberculosis, influenza, and COVID-19, are among the most common infectious causes of mortality. We focus on improved treatment and prevention of lung infections.

Why did some people get COVID but others didn't?

We set out to answer this question with the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Imperial College London. We used the world's first controlled "challenge trial" for COVID. Volunteers were deliberately exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, so that it could be studied in great detail. Dr Marko Nikolic and Dr Kaylee Worlock discuss their recent work which revealed the genetic markers that protected some people from COVID-19 infection.

Principal Investigators

Professor Jeremy Brown

Professor Marc Lipman

Dr Marko Nikolic

Dr Melissa Heightman

Dr Toby Hillman

Dr Anob Chakrabati

Dr Rishi Gupta

Tuberculosis

Prof. Mark Lipman leads research into the optimum treatment and management of tuberculosis, a chronic lung infection estimated to have infected about 10% of the world’s population and cause around X million deaths per year. He leads the WHO UCL TB centre.

Dr Rishi Gupta combines biomarkers and clinical data to predict outcomes of infection with tuberculosis and respiratory viruses, work that had an instant impact when applied to COVID during the 2020-21 pandemic.

COVID-19

Additional areas of research into COVID at UCL Respiratory include involvement in the Phosp COVID study of long-term consequences of severe COVID infection (Jeremy Brown), and the Stimulate-ICP study of treatments of 'long' COVID led by Melissa Heightman and Toby Hillman.

Dr Marko Nikolic has used novel techniques analysing gene expression by cells from the upper respiratory tract to perform groundbreaking work on why children are less susceptible to severe COVID than adults. He is now applying these techniques to human infection models of COVID, and to investigating influenza interactions with the respiratory epithelium.

Bacterial Pneumonia

Prof. Jeremy Brown leads a laboratory investigating the pathogenesis and developing new vaccine approaches for acute bacterial pneumonia, mainly S. pneumoniae (causes an estimated 1 million deaths per year) and leading to phase 1 trials of novel vaccines. More recently, his laboratory has started to develop novel treatment approaches for the highly antibiotic resistant bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii.

Illustration of the lungs and upper body

Selected publications

Mehta P, Sanz-Magallón Duque de Estrada B, Denneny EK ... Brown JS, Nikolić MZ, et al (2024). Single-cell analysis of bronchoalveolar cells in inflammatory and fibrotic post-COVID lung disease. Front Immunol. 2024 May 17;15: 1372658.
Kumar K, Ponnuswamy A, Capstick TG ... Lipman M, et al (2024). Non-tuberculous mycobacterial pulmonary disease (NTM-PD): Epidemiology, diagnosis and multidisciplinary management. Clin Med (Lond). 2024 Jan;24(1): 100017.
Kılıç A, Clarke AL, Moon Z ... Lipman M, et al (2023). Health and illness beliefs in adults with tuberculosis infection during the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. Dialogues Health. 2023 Nov 29;4:100162.
Hill H, Mitsi E, Nikolaou E ... Brown JS, et al (2023). A Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial of Nasal Immunization with Live Virulence Attenuated Streptococcus pneumoniae Strains Using Human Infection Challenge. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2023 Oct 15;208(8): 868-878.

Obolski U, Swarthout TD, Kalizang'oma A ... Brown JS, et al (2023). The metabolic, virulence and antimicrobial resistance profiles of colonising Streptococcus pneumoniae shift after PCV13 introduction in urban Malawi. Nat Commun. 2023 Nov 17;14(1): 7477.
C-MORE/PHOSP-COVID Collaborative Group (2023). Multiorgan MRI findings after hospitalisation with COVID-19 in the UK (C-MORE): a prospective, multicentre, observational cohort study. Lancet Respir Med. 2023 Nov;11(11): 1003-1019. Erratum in: Lancet Respir Med. 2023 Nov;11(11): e95.
Gupta RK, Calderwood CJ, Yavlinsky A ... Lipman M, Noursadeghi M, Abubakar I (2020). Discovery and validation of a personalized risk predictor for incident tuberculosis in low transmission settings. Nat Med. 2020 Dec;26(12): 1941-1949.
Yoshida M, Worlock KB, Huang N ... Nikolić MZ, Meyer KB (2022). Local and systemic responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection in children and adults. Nature. 2022 Feb;602(7896): 321-327.

Funding and Partners

Awards

Medical Research Council Experimental Medicine (2024-2027). Prof. J.S. Brown (PI) and D. Ferreira (coPI), Dr Nikolic (coPI). MRC Reference: APP11997. Award: £1,800,128.

Identifying the correlates of protection against Streptococcus pneumoniae respiratory tract infection using a human challenge model. In collaboration with Oxford, uses samples from experimental infection of human volunteers to describe in detail the consequences of nasopharyngeal colonisation by Streptococcus pneumoniae, including with laboratory-genetically modified strains.

Medical Research Council DPFS award (2024-2027). Prof. J.S. Brown (PI), and G. Lertmemongkolchai, R.Stabler and B.Wren. MRC Reference: MR/Y008693/1. Award: £1,547,785.

Isolation and characterisation of monoclonal antibodies for the treatment or prevention of antibiotic resistant Acinetobacter baumannii infections. Builds on an earlier award to identify monoclonal antibodies to selected Acinetobacter baumanii target antigens and characterise their protective ability with the aim to develop a novel treatment for severe infections with this organism.

Wellcome Investigator Award joint award (2021-2026). Prof. B.Wren and J.S.Brown. Award: £1,800,000.

Unravelling the molecular mechanisms of invasive pneumococcal disease. A joint project with London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine investigating why serotype 1 Streptococcus pneumoniae are much more likely to cause severe disease than other serotypes.

Inside the UK's first Long COVID clinic

There are around two million people suffering a range of ailments from severe fatigue to brain fog, and many have stopped work. Long Covid is devastating the lives of sufferers, with 400,000 Brits requiring specialist care. The Mirror received access to the UK's first clinic for the condition at University College Hospital London and spoke with our Long Covid expert and Head of Clinic, Dr Melissa Heightman.