ProfessorAjit Lalvani, MA MBBS DM FRCP FMedSci FFPH

Ajit is Chair of Infectious Diseases, Founding Director of the Tuberculosis Research Centre and Director of the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Respiratory Infections, Imperial College London and Honorary Consultant Physician at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. His research aims to protect the health of the population through tackling the world’s most serious respiratory infections: tuberculosis, pandemic influenza, COVID-19 and RSV. The Respiratory Infections HPRU which he leads is a national-level inter-institutional partnership between Imperial, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Research Surveillance Centre, the University of Oxford and several NHS Hospitals.

Ajit’s patient-based research aims to understand the body’s natural mechanisms of protection against lethal respiratory pathogens and the determinants of transmission. He translates his discoveries into innovative practical solutions to improve patient care and public health. These include: the blueprint for a universal pandemic influenza vaccine, the mechanism of action of BCG vaccine, the first rapid blood test for TB (IGRA, now the standard-of-care for diagnosing latent TB), delineating the infectious window of SARS-CoV-2 and its mode of spread in households, and the blueprint for variant-proof COVID vaccines. By devising the first IGRA-based national screening programme for latent TB in new migrants, he has helped to halve England’s TB burden in recent years. Ajit has raised >£40 million research funding and published >200 research papers, cited >15,000 times.

Ajit has supported research training opportunities for NHS clinicians in his role as Vice-chair of the Royal College of Physicians’ Research and Academic Medicine Committee for 10-years. As a Governor of The Science Museum Group he encourages the public’s engagement with science and the process of scientific discovery, including advising on key exhibits about the pandemic and TB. He has actively developed India’s medical research ecosystem through chairing the Strategic Advisory Board of The India Alliance, India’s pre-eminent medical research funding organization. Ajit is committed to reversing ever-widening health inequalities by tackling the social determinants of health through innovative, community-based approaches, such as those pioneered by The Bromley by Bow Centre, Tower Hamlets, which he chaired for a decade.