Contact information
Research groups
James Gilchrist
MRCPCH DPhil
NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer
I am a paediatric registrar, currently undertaking sub-specialty training in paediatric infectious diseases. I completed my DPhil in Oxford with Adrian Hill’s infectious diseases genetics group (Wellcome Centre for Human Genetics) in 2016, supported by a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellowship. My DPhil studies expanded on a long-standing interest in invasive nontyphoidal Salmonella (iNTS) disease in African children and HIV-infected adults, performing a genome-wide association study of iNTS disease in Kenyan and Malawian children alongside functional validation of disease-associated genetic variation.
I joined the Fairfax group in 2018 supported by an NIHR academic clinical lectureship. My current work aims to understand how environmental exposures, in particular CMV infection, interact with genetic determinants of immune cell function and how this interaction modifies health outcomes. I continue to have an active interest in the host genetic determinants of invasive infection in African children, with ongoing collaborative studies investigating the human genetic determinants of leprosy in African populations and rotavirus disease in Kenyan and Ugandan children (supported by an Academy of Medical Sciences Starter Grant for Clinical Lecturers).
Key publications
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Dysregulated humoral immunity to nontyphoidal Salmonella in HIV-infected African adults.
Journal article
MacLennan CA. et al, (2010), Science, 328, 508 - 512
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Risk of nontyphoidal Salmonella bacteraemia in African children is modified by STAT4.
Journal article
Gilchrist JJ. et al, (2018), Nat Commun, 9
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Human genetic and metabolite variation reveals that methylthioadenosine is a prognostic biomarker and an inflammatory regulator in sepsis.
Journal article
Wang L. et al, (2017), Sci Adv, 3
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Methylthioadenosine Suppresses Salmonella Virulence.
Journal article
Bourgeois JS. et al, (2018), Infect Immun, 86
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Risk of pneumococcal bacteremia in Kenyan children with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency.
Journal article
Gilchrist JJ. et al, (2020), BMC Med, 18
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Polymorphism in a lincRNA Associates with a Doubled Risk of Pneumococcal Bacteremia in Kenyan Children.
Journal article
Kenyan Bacteraemia Study Group None. et al, (2016), Am J Hum Genet, 98, 1092 - 1100
Recent publications
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CMV serostatus is associated with improved survival and delayed toxicity onset following anti-PD-1 checkpoint blockade
Journal article
Milotay G. et al, (2025), Nature Medicine
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Altered IL-6 signalling and risk of tuberculosis: a multi-ancestry mendelian randomisation study.
Journal article
Hamilton F. et al, (2024), Lancet Microbe
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Relation between the Dantu blood group variant and bacteraemia in Kenyan children: a population-based case control study.
Journal article
Kariuki SN. et al, (2024), J Infect Dis
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Characterization of the genetic determinants of context-specific DNA methylation in primary monocytes.
Journal article
Gilchrist JJ. et al, (2024), Cell Genom, 4
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A common NFKB1 variant detected through antibody analysis in UK Biobank predicts risk of infection and allergy.
Journal article
Chong AY. et al, (2024), Am J Hum Genet, 111, 295 - 308