Dr Jethro Herberg is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London. He holds honorary consultant positions at St Mary’s Hospital (Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust), and at the Royal Brompton Hospital. Following an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Oxford, and a PhD in human immunogenetics at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, he undertook medical training in London. He has worked as a clinician scientist at Imperial College since 2008. Current research focus on (1) the discovery and translation of biomarkers of febrile illness in children, using host gene expression and proteomics; (2) pathogen molecular diagnostics; (3) genetic susceptibility to severe infection. He has extensive experience of large-scale paediatric research studies, working with a wide range of paediatric infectious disease clinical and research collaborations in the USA, Europe and the UK. Dr. Herberg is deputy coordinator, and lead on the biomarker discovery work package for the Horizon 2020 PERFORM study (www.perform2020.eu). Host inflammatory responses are major contributors to disease pathophysiology, and analysis of host gene expression in different infection and inflammatory states can offer insights which may open the door to new therapies and diagnostic approaches. PERFORM is validating identified host RNA and protein biomarkers of bacterial, viral and inflammatory illness in a large study of febrile children presenting to healthcare in 10 European countries. Commercial partners including bioMerieux and Micropathology Ltd. Other research studies include the INGENIOS study, which is investigating genetic predisposition to severe infection, and the UK Kawasaki genetics study. His clinical interests cover the range of specialist paediatric infectious disease problems, with a particular interest in the clinical investigation of genetic predisposition to infection, and of Kawasaki disease. He has set up a European Kawasaki network (EUREKA) together with Dr Fernandez-Cooke (Madrid).
Other professional activities include roles as the Clinical Specialty Lead in Paediatrics for NW London LCRN, and membership of the UK Steering Group on Kawasaki Disease. He was the paediatric Lead for NHS England Ebola planning, and has advised on High Consequence Infectious Disease planning. He is the director of the Imperial College MRCPCH Clinical Course.