Hanif Esmail, Clinical Associate Professor in Infectious Diseases

Hanif joined the unit in 2019 having previously been a Clinical Lecturer at the University of Oxford.  He holds a joint position between the MRC CTU at UCL and the Institute for Global Health at UCL and is an Honorary Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Tropical Medicine at University College London Hospitals.  He is also an Honorary Research Associate at the University of Cape Town where he was based between 2010 and 2014 as a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellow. 

His research mainly focuses on tuberculosis as part of the respiratory infection program, in two main areas (1) Optimal diagnostic and treatment approaches for early TB disease (2) Pragmatic, person-centered management of drug-resistant TB in decentralised settings.

Selected publications

Cunniffe NG, Gunter SJ, Brown M, Burge SW, Coyle C, De Soyza A, Dymond T, Esmail H, Francis DP, Galloway J, Galloway JB, Gkrania-Klotsas E, Greenaway J, Katritsis G, Kanagaratnam P, Knolle MD, Leonard K, McIntyre ZC, Prudon B, Rampling T, Torok ME, Warne B, Yates M, Matheson NJ, Su L, Villar S, Stewart GD, Toshner M. How achievable are COVID-19 clinical trial recruitment targets? A UK observational cohort study and trials registry analysis. BMJ Open. 2020 Oct 5;10(10)

Frascella B, Richards AS, Sossen B, Emery JC, Odone A, Law I, Onozaki I, Esmail H, Houben RMGJ. Subclinical tuberculosis disease - a review and analysis of prevalence surveys to inform definitions, burden, associations and screening methodology. Clin Infect Dis. 2020 Sept 16

Gupta RK, Turner CT, Venturini C, Esmail H, Rangaka MX, Copas A, Lipman M, Abubakar I, Noursadeghi M. Concise whole blood transcriptional signatures for incipient tuberculosis: a systematic review and patient-level pooled meta-analysis. Lancet Respir Med. 2020 Apr;8(4):395-406.

Esmail H, Lai RP, Lesosky M, Wilkinson KA, Graham CM, Horswell S, Coussens AK, Barry CE 3rd, O'Garra A, Wilkinson RJ.Complement pathway gene activation and rising circulating immune complexes characterize early disease in HIV-associated tuberculosis. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Jan 30;115(5):E964-E973.

Esmail H, Lai RP, Lesosky M, Wilkinson KA, Graham CM, Coussens AK, Oni T, Warwick JM, Said-Hartley Q, Koegelenberg CF, Walzl G, Flynn JL, Young DB, Barry Iii CE, O'Garra A, Wilkinson RJ. Characterization of progressive HIV-associated tuberculosis using 2-deoxy-2-[¹⁸F]fluoro-D-glucose positron emission and computed tomography. Nat Med. 2016 Oct;22(10):1090-1093.

Research Interests

• Early/subclinical tuberculosis disease
• Decentralised management of drug-resistant tuberculosis
• Novel diagnostics and imaging
• Clinical Decision Support tools
• Systematic review/meta-analysis
• Snakebite

Research Areas

• Tuberculosis
• Other conditions – snakebite
• Methodology