Dr Simon Johnston

PhD

Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine and Population Health

Senior Research Fellow

s.a.johnston@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2301

Full contact details

Dr Simon Johnston
Clinical Medicine, School of Medicine and Population Health
Firth Court
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
Profile

For enquiries please contact - ClinMed-Operational@sheffield.ac.uk

  • 2018 - Senior Research Fellow. Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease, Bateson Centre, University of Sheffield.
  • 2012 - 2018 Medical Research Council - Career Development Award Fellow, Department of Infection, Immunity and Cardiovascular Disease, MRC Centre for Developmental and Biomedical Genetics. (2012-2014) and Bateson Centre (2014), University of Sheffield.
  • 2012 - 2017 Krebs Institute - Fellow, Krebs Institute, University of Sheffield.
  • 2011 - 2012 Lister Institute Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Birmingham, Birmingham.
  • 2010 - 2011 Wellcome Trust - Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Birmingham, Birmingham.
  • 2007 - 2010 Medical Research Council - Post-Doctoral Research Associate, University of Birmingham, Birmingham.
  • 2003 - 2007 PhD Cell Biology, University of Birmingham.
  • 2000 - 2003 BSc (Hons) Biochemistry, University of Birmingham.
Research interests

My research group is focused on the study infectious disease to improve patient treatment and to further our fundamental understanding of how the immune system functions. We use a multidisciplinary approach in collaboration with biologists, clinicians, engineers and physicists. In this way we aim to use the best experimental model to answer the specific research question at hand.

We have a particular interest in opportunistic fungal infections in immunocompromise. One example is Cryptococcus neoformans, which is a fungal pathogen of humans and causes hundreds of thousands of deaths in the severely immunocompromised world-wide each year.

Most life-threatening infections are in individuals with AIDS in Africa where it is the most common cause of meningo-encephalitis and the cause of 15% of AIDS-related deaths. In our studies of cryptococcal disease my group has contributed to how the immune system is defective in responding to cryptococcal infection in immunocompromise and what features of cryptococci drive their virulence.

Currently, we have three research priorities:

  1. Macrophage mediated immunity to opportunistic infection
  2. Central nervous system pathology in infection and immune system disease
  3. Mechanisms and regulation of phagocytosis
Publications

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Books

  • Heitman J (2011) Cryptococcus From Human Pathogen to Model Yeast. Amer Society for Microbiology. RIS download Bibtex download

Journal articles

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