Dr Darius Armstrong-James

Darius Armstrong-James is an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellow and Clinical Senior Lecturer in Fungal Diseases Immunobiology. He is also an Honorary Consultant in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Imperial College Healthcare. After initially training at the University of Southampton he completed general professional training at Kings College London, and then obtained an MSc in the Molecular Biology of Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, followed by a PhD in Molecular Mycology at Imperial. He completed specialist training in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases in London, before returning to Imperial in 2010. 

Diseases such as invasive aspergillosis, candidiasis, cryptococcosis and mucormycosis occur predominantly in severely immunocompromised individuals, and carry very high mortalities generally in excess of 50%. This is despite the availability of an increasing number of fungicidal drugs with good in vitro activity. The major focus of Darius' work is the development of novel immunodiagnostics and immunotherapeutics for life-threatening invasive fungal infections. Such an approach has real potential to complement  current conventional antifungal chemotherapies in the context of severe immunocompromise.