Rate My Professor Shiranee Sriskandan

Shiranee Sriskandan is Professor of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Infectious Disease within the Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College London. She serves as Head of the Section of Adult Infectious Diseases and Co-Director of the Centre for Bacterial Resistance Biology. An honorary consultant in infectious diseases at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust since 1989, she qualified with an MA and MBBChir from the University of Cambridge and the Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital. She was awarded her PhD by the University of London in 1997 and obtained Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) in 2001. Her clinical and research career focuses on severe sepsis, toxic shock, Group A streptococcal infections, and general infectious diseases, including travel-related infections and tuberculosis.

A world-leading expert on Group A Streptococcus (Streptococcus pyogenes), Professor Sriskandan's research examines bacterial pathogenesis, transmission dynamics, population-level impacts, and vaccine development, with studies ongoing since 2005. Her laboratory collaborates with the UK Health Security Agency on interventions to improve public health outcomes and has informed national and international guidelines for managing streptococcal infections in hospitals and communities. She leads the iSpy-LIFE sub-network within a global research consortium combating deadly Strep A infections and is an Executive member of the International Vaccine Institute's Strep A Vaccine Global Consortium (SAVAC). Key publications include 'The immunology of sepsis' (Sriskandan & Altmann, Journal of Pathology, 2008), 'Gram-positive sepsis: mechanisms and differences from gram-negative sepsis' (Sriskandan & Cohen, Infectious Disease Clinics of North America, 1999), 'Emergence of dominant toxigenic M1T1 Streptococcus pyogenes clone during increased scarlet fever activity in England' (Lynskey et al., Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2019), 'Mammalian Toll-like receptors: to immunity and beyond' (Hopkins & Sriskandan, Clinical & Experimental Immunology, 2005), and 'Rapid Lymphatic Dissemination of Encapsulated Group A Streptococci via Lymphatic Vessel Endothelial Receptor-1 Interaction' (Lynskey et al., PLoS Pathogens, 2015). She holds leadership roles as Royal College of Physicians Lead for Sepsis and member of the NEWS2 advisory group, and was elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2022 and recipient of the Julia Higgins Award in 2024 for advancing women in academia.