Dr Adam Dale is an Associate Professor in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology within the Southampton Controlled Human Infection Group (CHIG). He is also an Honorary Consultant at University Hospital Southampton, specialising in the management of transplant-associated infections.   

His research focuses on understanding the immunological mechanisms that afford protection against upper respiratory tract pathobiont colonisation, with the ultimate aim of informing next-generation vaccine design. A critical component of his research involves the use of controlled human infection models (CHIMs), utilising wild-type and genetically modified strains of Neisseria lactamica, and Bordetella pertussis. 

Dr Dale graduated from the University of Leeds in 2010 where he completed undergraduate degrees in both Medicine and Microbiology in Relation to Medicine. Following post-graduate clinical training in South Yorkshire and the West Midlands, in 2014 he was appointed as an Academic Clinical Fellow in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology within the Wessex Deanery where he worked in the Research Group of Professor Robert C. Read. 

Dr Dale's PhD was funded by an independently-obtained Wellcome Trust Doctoral Training Fellowship and focused on characterisation of the adaptive immune responses generated in response to controlled infection with wild-type and genetically modified strains of N. lactamica. He was a major contributor to a first-in-man study demonstrating that asymptomatic human colonisation with a knock-in strain of N. lactamica expressing the meningococcal adhesin, Neisseria Adhesin A (NadA), generated anti-meningococcal immune responses, and may therefore have utility as a future bacterial medicine. He subsequently went on to be NIHR Clinical Lecturer in Infectious Diseases before being appointed as tenured Associate Professor in March 2024.

More recently, working within Southampton CHIG, Dr Dale was part of a team that utilised the B. pertussis controlled human infection model to:

(1) Define immune correlates of protection against asymptomatic infection with B. pertussis.

(2) Test the efficacy of the intra-nasal B. pertussis vaccine candidate, BPZE1, in a vaccine-CHIM trial. 

Outside of his work in controlled human infection, Dr Dale contributes to the vaccine research field more broadly through collaboration with academic and industrial partners. For example, he is a researcher-co-investigator in the IMMPROVE (Immune Memory and Mechanisms of Protection from Vaccines) consortium and holds active industrial funding from Moderna Inc. (doctoral fellowship programme). 

Qualifications

• Microbiology in Relation to Medicine, University of Leeds (2008).

• MBChB (hons), University of Leeds (2010).

• Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (2013).

• Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists (Medical Microbiology/Virology) (2017).

• PhD, University of Southampton (2021). 

Appointments

• NIHR Academic Foundation Programme, Sheffield University Teaching Hospitals/University of Sheffield (2010-2012).  

• Core Medical Training, West Midlands Deanery (2012-2014). 

• NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship, Infectious Diseases/Medical Microbiology, Wessex Deanery/University of Southampton (2014-2017). 

• Wellcome Trust Research Training Fellowship (2017-2020).

• Specialist Registrar (ST6) in Infectious Diseases/Medical Microbiology, University Hospital Southampton (2020-2021). 

• NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Infectious Diseases, University of Southampton, and Honorary Specialist Registrar in Infectious Diseases/Medical Microbiology, University Hospital Southampton (2021-present).

• Associate Professor in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology, University of Southampton, and Honorary Consultant at University Hospital Southampton.