Clinical expertise

Dr Anand Shah is a consultant respiratory physician based at the Royal Brompton Hospital. He has expertise in allergy, asthma, cough, COPD and runs a national specialist respiratory infection unit with a particular interest in fungal lung infection, he also treats:

  • respiratory infection
  • allergic asthma including Allergic Bronchopulmonary Aspergillosis
  • bronchiectasis
  • fungal lung infection (including aspergillosis)
  • host immune abnormalities
  • COVID-19 and viral infection (infection and long-COVID)
  • cystic fibrosis
  • primary ciliary dyskinesia
  • primary or secondary immunodeficiency


Biography

Dr Anand Shah completed his medical training at Imperial College London in 2004 alongside an intercalated BSc. He trained as a respiratory doctor in North West London and spent time working within the lung transplant unit at Harefield Hospital and the Host Defence Unit at Royal Brompton hospital.

It was during this time that he encountered numerous individuals with a fungal lung infection and developed his academic interest to try and better understand host susceptibility to fungal infection and develop translational research strategies to improve outcomes. This interest led to an MRC clinical PhD research fellowship in 2012-2015 in the Armstrong-James laboratory at Imperial College London analysing the effects of calcineurin inhibition on the human macrophage response to Aspergillus fumigatus using a combination of high-resolution time-lapse confocal microscopy alongside an ‘omics’ based approach.

He then became a consultant at Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust in 2016 in the respiratory infection unit looking after ~2000 patients with complex respiratory infection. He leads the fungal clinical service which is one the largest complex lung fungal patient services in Europe.

This work was published in the American Journal of Critical Care Medicine and presented at numerous national and international presentations. Following completion of his PhD and clinical training, he took up a consultant position at Royal Brompton and Harefield hospitals, working in the adult cystic fibrosis and host defence departments.

He has continued and expanded his academic interests and research during this time, receiving numerous research awards and funding.

He has won the following awards:

  • MRC Clinical Academic Research Partnership award (2019)
  • Cystic Fibrosis Mentored Research Innovation Award (2018)
  • Gilead UK Fellowship in Invasive Fungal Infection (2017)
  • Cystic Fibrosis Trust Clinical Excellence and Innovation Award (2017)
  • NHS Darzi Fellowship in clinical leadership (2017 and 2018)
  • MRC Clinical Research Fellowship (2011)
  • London Deanery Postgraduate Education Fellowship (2010)

Research

Dr Shah continues to be involved in research, and he focuses particularly on improving outcomes in bronchiectasis, respiratory infection with a particular focus on viral infection, antimicrobial resistance and fungal lung disease.

He is a co-director of the Imperial College Fungal research network of excellence and chairs the European Respiratory Society Antimicrobial Resistance Lung network (AMR-Lung) with over 300 members across 60 countries.

During his career, he has received a number of awards including the MRC Clinical Academic Research Partnership award (2019), the Cystic Fibrosis Mentored Research Innovation Award (2018), and the Gilead UK Fellowship in Invasive Fungal Infection (2017).

Examples of current active research projects led by Dr Anand Shah:

  • Chief investigator of a £2 million MRC experimental medicine programme grant developing a novel human rhinovirus challenge model in bronchiectasis
  • Chief investigator of a longitudinal cohort study in bronchiectasis to better understand causes of exacerbations and identify novel treatment strategies
  • Chief investigator of international study of antimicrobial resistance in chronic lung disease

Teaching

He is also an honorary clinical senior lecturer at Imperial College London with an active translational research laboratory where he supervises a number of PhD students and leads multiple national and international research programmes.

Dr Shah is a member of the British Thoracic Society Specialist Advisory Group for respiratory infection (2018 – current). He is also a member of the Antimicrobial Resistance in Cystic Fibrosis International Working Group.

Dr Shah collaborates within the industry and has received numerous industry-sponsored research innovation awards and investigator-led research grants. He is a sub-investigator on multiple multi-centre international clinical trials.

Publications

  • using artificial intelligence in fungal lung disease: CPA CT imaging as an example
  • a retrospective ‘real-world’ cohort study of azole therapeutic drug monitoring and evolution of antifungal resistance in cystic fibrosis
  • confronting and mitigating the risk of COVID-19 associated pulmonary aspergillosis
  • the contribution of Aspergillus fumigatus to COPD exacerbations: a “sensitive” topic
  • pulsed echinocandin therapy in azole intolerant or multi-resistant chronic pulmonary aspergillosis: A retrospective review at a UK tertiary centre
  • tablet and web-based audiometry to screen for hearing loss in adults with cystic fibrosis
  • unravelling machine learning – Insights in respiratory medicine
  • posaconazole for the treatment of allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis in patients with cystic fibrosis
  • antimicrobial susceptibility testing (AST) and associated clinical outcomes in individuals with cystic fibrosis: A systematic review
  • Ibrutinib blocks BTK-dependent NF-κB and NFAT responses in human macrophages during Aspergillus fumigatus phagocytosis
  • calcineurin orchestrates lateral transfer of Aspergillus fumigatus during macrophage cell death
  • a longitudinal study of an adult primary ciliary dyskinesia cohort
  • phagocytosis-dependent activation of a TLR9-BTK-calcineurin-NFAT pathway co-ordinates innate immunity to Aspergillus fumigatus

Memberships