Biography

Professor Darius Armstrong-James is an infectious diseases physician and medical mycologist at Royal Brompton Hospital where he treats private and NHS patients.

Professor Armstrong-James studied medicine at the University of Southampton, graduating in 1996. He completed specialist training in infectious diseases and general medicine in London, during which he completed his PhD at Imperial College London on fungal virulence. He then took up an MRC Clinician Scientist Fellowship at Imperial College, and during that time, he established medical mycology services at Imperial College Healthcare.

He leads a large translational research team developing novel diagnostics and therapeutics for fungal diseases at Imperial College London where he is a Principal Investigator in the Medical Research Council Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection. He is the Director of the Imperial College London Network of Excellence in Fungal Biology and Infection, and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust Strategic Research Centre in Fungal Immunotherapy.  

Professor Armstrong-James has been a clinician at Royal Brompton Hospital since 2014. He provides clinical advice for infectious diseases and runs the fungal diseases service at the Royal Brompton Hospital with Dr Anand Shah. He also leads the diagnostic medical mycology service at Royal Brompton Hospital.

Clinical expertise

Professor Darius Armstrong-James is an infectious diseases physician with a specialist interest in fungal diseases and general and respiratory infectious diseases.

He has an international reputation in fungal diseases recognised by positions in a number of key European and global groupings as well as the regular organisation of international meetings and leadership of national and international networks and centres.

He treats many conditions including:

  • returning travellers
  • lyme disease
  • aspergillosis
  • fungal nail infection
  • fungal diseases
  • athlete's foot
  • candida
  • thrush
  • tropical diseases
  • all COVID-related issues
  • all infectious diseases issues
  • MRSA and PVL.

Research

Professor Armstrong-James's primary interest is the pathobiology of pulmonary aspergillosis, where he has investigated the link between fungal germination, endosomal sensing, and cell death responses. His lab adopts a multidisciplinary approach spanning molecular immunology, single-cell imaging, animal models and clinical studies. He has established a major translational research program around antimicrobial resistance, therapeutics and immunotherapeutics for fungal diseases.

Teaching

Professor Armstrong-James is a professor in Infectious Diseases and Medical Mycology at Imperial College London. He has supervised 20 PhD students.

Publications

Professor Armstrong-James has published a number of papers in notable journals including the Lancet, Lancet Infectious Diseases, Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Nature Microbiology, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine and EMBO Molecular Medicine.