Shiranee Sriskandan

Shiranee Sriskandan is a British academic who is Professor of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London and Honorary Consultant at Hammersmith Hospital. Her research considers how Gram-positive bacteria cause disease, with a particular focus on the bacteria Streptococcus pyogenes.

Early life and education Sriskandan was born in 1964 in Yorkshire. Her father, Sri Lankan-born bridge designer Kanagaratnam Sriskandan (1930-2010), served as Britain's Chief Highway Engineer. As a child, Sriskandan was interested in physics and space science. Sriskandan attended Bromley High School in Greater London from 1973 to 1982. Her brother studied medicine, and this inspired her to become a physician too. Sriskandan completed her undergraduate degree in medicine at Clare College, Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Hospital. She completed her doctoral research on Streptococcus pyogenes at Imperial College London. She specialised in infectious diseases and completed a Medical Research Council clinical fellowship.

Research and career Every year, 616 million cases of pharyngitis are caused by the bacteria streptococcus pyogenes. The bacterium can cause a range of diseases, from sepsis, to skin infections and pharyngitis. Unfortunately, 1 in 5 patients who have an invasive Group A streptococcal infections die.

Following the 2014 increase in scarlet fever, Sriskandan became interested in whether it was due to an increase in Group A streptococcus (Strep A). To analyse this, she studied the number of laboratory confirmed cases of Group A streptococcal infections. She demonstrated that whilst the majority of cases of scarlet fever in 2014 were caused by the strain emm3 and emm4, infections of the emm1 strain increased annually.

COVID-19 - 2020 Sriskandan is part of an Imperial College London, University of Edinburgh and University of Liverpool collaboration to understand the progression of Coronavirus disease 2019. It was one of the first research projects to receive funding from the UK Medical Research Council in response to the pandemic. The International Severe Acute Respiratory Infection Consortium (ISARIC) was established after the 2009 influenza pandemic in collaboration with Public Health England.

Selected publications