ProfessorDarius Armstrong-James

Darius initially studied Trypanosomal peroxidases with John Kelly and David Horn at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine before He went on to win a PhD at Imperial supervised by Ken Haynes, Tom Rogers and Elaine Bignell focussing on the fungal systems biology of host environmental adaptation. He was subsequently awarded a MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship undertaken in the Wellcome Centre for Molecular Microbiology and Infection, including time spent at Duke University mentored by John Perfect, to unravel the mechanistic basis for fungal immunodeficiency in organ transplantation. This lead to the discovery of a novel endosomal Toll-like receptor pathway linking innate immune sensing to Bruton's Tyrosine Kinas and  the calcineurin pathway and the description of a novel fungally-induced form of macrophage cell death which he coined “Metaforosis”.

He has developed translational fungal disease research capacity in the UK across antimicrobial resistance, where he collaborated with Jo Rhodes and Matt Fisher on fungal AMR in Candida auris and Aspergillus fumigatus, lung transplant associated respiratory fungal diseases with Anna Reed, and Cystic Fibrosis-associated fungal disease with Adilia Warris (Exeter) and Andy Jones (Manchester).