Dr Robin Basu Roy, BA, BMBCh, EdM, MRCPCH, DTM&H, PhD

Profile

Robin is a Senior Clinical Lecturer and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at the Blizard Institute QMUL and Royal London Hospital, Barts Health NHS Trust.

Prior to joining QMUL in April 2024, Robin was an NIHR-funded Academic Clinical Lecturer in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine from 2019 and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at Great Ormond Street Hospital from 2022. He was a Clinical Lecturer in Paediatrics at the University of Oxford from 2017-2019.

Robin received a Clinical Training Research Fellowship from the Medical Research Council and Department for International Development to conduct his Imperial College PhD research at the MRC Unit The Gambia at LSHTM: “Protection from M tuberculosis infection - Learning from exposed but uninfected children in The Gambia."

Robin was awarded a Master of Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education in 2008 and spent six months in Eric Rubin’s Tuberculosis research lab at Harvard School of Public Health in 2010-11.

He has a long-standing interest in medical humanities, particularly film.  He organises public screenings of great films to catalyse interdisciplinary discussions about child wellbeing. These panel discussions integrate child mental health, film academics, the charitable sector and museums (www.watchtalkthink.com). He sits on the Steering Committee of the QMUL Centre for Childhood Cultures.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=BmoqE2UAAAAJ&hl=en 
PubMed: http://tinyurl.com/robinpubmed 

Teaching

Robin has a long-standing interest in education, having studied for a Masters in Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) in 2007-8 and published primary research on the use of video in case-based learning. His educational work has been recognized with various awards from HGSE, Harvard Medical School, Association for Study of Medical Education, and London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Whilst at LSHTM, Robin was the lead for introducing Decolonising Global Health into the Diploma of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene.

Research

Research Interests:

Robin’s research focuses on the spectrum of childhood tuberculosis – spanning paediatric immunity to tuberculosis infection through to diagnostics for tuberculous meningitis.

He is Principal Investigator for a diagnostic sub-study of the SURE randomized controlled trial of short intensive treatment for paediatric TB meningitis (https://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN40829906).

He is a co-investigator on the NIH-funded “Identifying correlates of risk for future tuberculosis disease progression in children (INTREPID)."

He is also exploring potential host-directed therapies for Non-Tuberculous Mycobacterial (NTM) infections.

Publications

Key Publications

2021
Treatment and outcome in paediatric TB meningitis: multi-centre ptbnet study. Thee S*, Basu Roy R*, Blázquez-Gamero D, Falcon Lola, Neth O, Noguera A, Lillo C, Galli L, Venturini E, Buonsenso D, Goetzinger F, Martinez-Alier N, Velizarova S, Brinkmann F, Welch S, Tsolia M, Santiago-Garcia B, Schilling E, Tebruegge M, Krüger R Clin Infect Dis doi: 10.1093/cid/ciab982

2021
Vitamin D in Gambian children with discordant latent tuberculosis infection status despite matched TB exposure: a case control study. Stockdale L K, Sambou B, Sissoko M, Egere U, Sillah A K, Kampmann B & Basu Roy R Eur J Pediatrics doi: 10.1007/s00431-021-04272-z

2020
Protection Against Mycobacterial Infection: a case-control study of mycobacterial immune responses in pairs of Gambian children with discordant infection status despite matched TB exposure. Basu Roy R, Sambou B, Sissoko M, Holder B, Gomez MP, Egere U, Sillah AK, Koukounari A, Kampmann B EBioMedicine. doi.org/10.1016/j.ebiom.2020.102891

2020
Performance of immune-based and microbiological tests in children with TB meningitis in Europe – a multi-center ptbnet study. Basu Roy R*, Thee S*, Blázquez-Gamero D, Falcon Lola, Neth O, Noguera A, Lillo C, Galli L, Venturini E, Buonsenso D, Goetzinger F, Martinez-Alier N, Velizarova S, Brinkmann F, Welch S, Tsolia M, Santiago-Garcia B, Krüger R, Tebruegge M European Respiratory Journal.  doi: 10.1183/13993003.02004-2019 (*joint 1st author)

2020
Performance of metabonomic serum analysis for diagnostics in paediatric tuberculosis. Andreas NJ*; Basu Roy R*, Gomez-Romero M, Horneffer-van der Sluis, V, Lewis MR, Camuzeaux SSM, Jiménez, B, Posma JM, Tientcheu L, Egere, U, Sillah A, Togun T, Holmes E, Kampmann B. Scientific Reports doi:10.1038/s41598-020-64413-6 (*joint 1st author)

Supervision

PhD students:

Dr Susan Abarca Salazar:  SURE+DP: improving Diagnosis and Prognosis for paediatric tuberculous meningitis through the SURE treatment trial. LSHTM & Nagasaki University Joint PhD Programme for Global Health. PhD awarded March 2024

Kate Errington: Public Understandings of Maternal Health: A Cultural History. Bloomsbury Colleges PhD studentship.