DrElizabeth Whittaker

Liz Whittaker is Professor of Practice (paediatric infectious diseases and immunology). She divides her time between Imperial College London and the Department of Paediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology, St. Marys Hospital, London where she is a Consultant.

Dr. Whittaker is the Director of Research for West London Children's Healthcare (WLCH), working closely with the Board of WLCH and Imperial College's Centre of Paediatrics and Child Health (PaeCH) to ensure research is embedded in every patient's journey.

Dr Whittaker is the Clinical Lead for Paediatric Infectious Diseases and the co-lead for HCID (high consequence infectious diseases) at St Marys, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.

She is the National Clinical Lead for High Consequence Infectious Diseases in children (NHSE) nationally.

She is on the steering committee of the British Association of Paediatric Tuberculosis (BAPT) and works closely with international colleagues in Europe and beyond to improve diagnosis and outcomes in children with TB, through the PTBNET group amongst others.
She was the Convenor of the British Paediatric Allergy Infection and Immunity Group (BPAIIG) from 2019-2025

Her main research interests are the ontogeny of infant immune responses to a variety of pathogens.

Her PhD students work on the impact of viral co-infection on tuberculosis (TB) susceptibility as well as factors that lead to increased susceptibility to TB disease and infection in adolescents. She also co-supervises research on vaccine hesitancy and genetic pre-disposition to severe infection.

She is a co-investigator on NIHR funded REMAP-CAP influenza trial and the NIHR Funded RABBIT trial (prolonged antibiotics in recurrent acute otitis media).  

Liz completed her Wellcome Trust funded PhD project "Immune responses to mycobacteria; the role of age and disease severity" in 2014. The project was supervised by Professor Beate Kampmann at Imperial College and Professors Mark Nicol and Heather Zar at the University of Cape Town, where all of the children were recruited at Red Cross Memorial Children's Hospital. She was fortunate to complete her lab work in the Institute of Infectious Disease and Molecular Medicine in Cape Town, working closely with both Clinical Infectious Diseases Research Initiative (CIDRI) and the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative (SATVI).

She completed her undergraduate training in medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, including an HRB (Health Research Board) funded BSc in Biochemistry, when she won the Bruno Orsi Medal for best research project. Following this she trained as a paediatrician in London and was successfully awarded an Academic Clinical Fellowship in Paediatric Infectious Diseases in 2006. The 9 month research period associated with this fellowship allowed her to develop her interest in paediatric infectious diseases in particular TB immunology. During this time she was also involved in the setting up of a paediatric TB Europe Network to facilitate collaboration between Paediatricians caring for children with TB and improved care for children with TB in Europe. She completed the Gorgas Diploma Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine in Peru and was awarded a DTM&H in 2009.

She is a member of IMPRINT and INVAR networks.