Patrick Mallia Email & Phone Number

I am certified in both Respiratory Medicine and General Internal Medicine (G(I)M) and I have extensive clinical experience in both. My main areas of clinical interest are COPD, asthma, bronchiectasis, respiratory infection and cough and I have clinical experience in other areas including TB, ILD, pleural disease, respiratory failure (acute and chronic), lung cancer, allergy and pulmonary embolism. As St Mary’s Hospital is the major acute hospital for North West London with a busy Emergency Department I participate in the general medical rota for acute unselected medical admissions. My areas of research interest are the mechanisms of viral and bacterial infections in exacerbations of COPD and asthma. For my PhD thesis I developed the first human model of COPD exacerbation using experimental rhinovirus infection. This was the first study to infect COPD patients with a respiratory virus and successfully validated rhinovirus infection as a model of exacerbation and provided novel data on the mechanisms of susceptibility to virus infection in COPD. I undertook further research identifying secondary bacterial infections following respiratory virus infections in COPD and investigating mechanisms of virus-induced immune suppression. This work has resulted in 14 publications with further papers submitted and has led to the award of substantial grants to fund further work in this area, including a successful application for a Medical Research Council Programme Grant. I am currently investigating the contribution of metabolites and nutrients in the airway to susceptibility to bacterial infection in COPD and whether these can be altered to inhibit bacterial growth.I have also been involved in experimental rhinovirus infection studies in asthma that led to the identification of interferon deficiency as a novel mechanism involved in virus-associated asthma exacerbations and in several clinical trials of new treatments for both COPD and asthma.