Dr Jonathan Underwood
Specialty Lead for Infection
Dr Jonathan Underwood is a Consultant Physician specialising in Infectious Diseases and Acute Medicine at the University Hospital of Wales. Jonathan completed his PhD in 2017 at Imperial College London, where his research focused on cognitive impairment in treated HIV disease using advanced neuroimaging and multivariate analysis techniques. His primary research interests lie in understanding the immunopathogenesis of infections, particularly the neurological complications of systemic infections.
Jonathan continued research into the inflammatory sequelae of infections, winning an MRC-NIHR Clinical Academic Research Partnership grant to study blood-brain barrier dysfunction and risk of dementia following bloodstream infections. This ongoing cross-disciplinary project is in collaboration with Cardiff University’s Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), the SAIL Databank at Swansea University and Public Health Wales.
Jonathan is research lead for infectious diseases at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and principal investigator for several RCTs across a spectrum of infectious diseases (including community-acquired pneumonia, HIV & bloodstream infections). He is co-investigator of the £2.5m NIHR funded SNAP study aiming to improve outcomes for patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia. As an advocate for translational research and clinical trials, Jonathan aims to increase access and participation for patients across Wales.