Dr Adrian Shields MBBS, MRCP, PhD

Adrian Shields

Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy
Clinical Lecturer

Contact details

Address
Department of Immunology and Immunotherapy
College of Medicine and Health
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Adrian Shields is a clinical immunologist interested in understanding the mechanisms that protect us from infections and how those systems fail in individuals with primary and secondary immunodeficiencies.

His recent work has described risk factors for severe COVID-19 in individuals with immunodeficiencies and understanding the antibody response to SARS-CoV-2 in large cohorts of health care workers

Qualifications

Clinical Lecturer in Immunology

  • MCRP – 2015
  • MBBS – 2012
  • PhD in Immunology – 2010
  • BSc (Hons) in Immunobiology and Infectious Disease - 2006

Biography

Adrian studied medicine at King’s College London, undertaking an intercalated PhD in 2006 investigating non-invasive gene delivery as an approach to treat inflammatory arthritis.

He went on to undertake further research projects with Dr Mike Lunn in at the Institute of Neurology, University College London looking for novel autoantigens in paraneoplastic neurological syndromes, with Dr Myles Lewis at the Department of Medical Genetics at King’s College London examining the role of ubiquitin conjugating enzymes in systemic lupus erythematosus and finally with Prof Graham Ogg at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford, looking at proteomic signatures in allergic dermatitis.

His medical training included placements across various South London teaching hospitals before specialty training in Clinical Immunology in Oxford and Birmingham.

Adrian currently chairs the West Midlands regional immunogenomics multi-disciplinary meeting where the results of next-generation sequencing panels for patients with immunodeficiencies are reported and interpreted.

His research interests include the cellular and molecular mechansism underlying primary and secondary immunodeficiency and assay development to understand and interpret genetic variants of unknown significance.

Teaching

  • MBChB
    • Year 3 Immunology module
    • Year 2  Immunology module
  • MPharm
    • Year 2 Immunology module

Postgraduate supervision

Enquires should be directed to a.m.shields@bham.ac.uk

Research

Research interests

  • Primary immunodeficiency
  • Secondary immunodeficiency
  • Genomic medicine in immmodeficiency
  • Immunoassay development

Current projects

  • Understanding the systemic and mucosal antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in mild and moderate COVID-19
  • Risk factors for severe COVID-19 in patients with primary and secondary immunodeficiency
  • Development of clinical and laboratory biomarkers to define the severity of secondary immunodeficiency

Other activities

  • Chair of the West Midlands Immunogenomics multi-disciplinary meeting
  • Clinical interest in primary and secondary immunodeficiencies, particularly complex secondary immunodeficiency following stem cell transplantation.

Publications

Recent publications

Article

Cook, JA, Patten, PEM, Peckham, N, Moss, P, Phillips, N, Abhishek, A, Roberts, T, Hodges, M, Talbot, G, Barber, V, Francis, A, Shields, AM, Duley, L, Hoogeboom, R, Willett, BJ, Scott, S, Parry-Jones, N, Eyre, TA, Plested, G, Vandici, G, Wandroo, FA, Hutchinson, C, Paneesha, S, Murray, DJ, Martinez-Calle, N, Jenkins, S, Heartin, E & Parry, HM 2025, 'A 3-week pause versus continued Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor use during COVID-19 vaccination in individuals with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (IMPROVE trial): a randomised, open-label, superiority trial', The Lancet Haematology, vol. 12, no. 4, pp. e294-e303. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2352-3026(25)00008-0

BactiVac Network, MacLennan, CA, Cunningham, AF, Dean, JE, Pope, S, Balandyte-Shergill, E, Pillaye, J, Greenwood, BM & Adegbola, RA 2025, 'BactiVac, the Bacterial Vaccines Network', Vaccine, vol. 57, 127210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2025.127210

Chin, AT, Ochs, HD, Kobayashi, R, Abolhassani, H, Alachkar, H, Barmettler, S, Baxendale, H, Boiling, K, Catanzaro, J, Chua, I, Coulter, T, Cunningham-Rundles, C, Elcombe, SE, Fischer, A, Grimbacher, B, Gupta, S, Herriot, R, Herwadkar, A, Imai, K, Inoue, S, Kirkpatrick, C, Knutsen, AP, Kumararatne, D, Lea, E, Lin, M-W, Litzman, J, Mahlaoui, N, Moriya, K, Nonoyama, S, Patel, S, Perez, E, Quinti, I, Hostoffer, RW, Rothenfusser, S, Sargur, R, Shields, A, Sogkas, G, Suan, D, Tan, T, Thomas, M, Warnatz, K, Younger, EM & Kuo, CY 2025, 'Clinical and Molecular Characteristics of X-Linked Agammaglobulinemia Patients 55 Years or Older', Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: In Practice. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaip.2025.06.025

Dimbleby, B, Greenway, W, Burns, SO, Richter, AG & Shields, AM 2025, 'Health Care Utilisation in a Cohort of Patients with Primary and Secondary Antibody Deficiency in the United Kingdom', Journal of Clinical Immunology, vol. 45, no. 1, 18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10875-024-01809-3

Peters, NE, Shields, AM, Hambleton, S & Richter, AG 2025, 'Learning from inborn errors of immunity and secondary immune deficiencies about vaccine immunogenicity, efficacy and safety', Clinical and Experimental Immunology. https://doi.org/10.1093/cei/uxaf059

Bagkou Dimakou, D, Peters, NE, Burns, SO, Richter, AG & Shields, AM 2025, 'Serum sBCMA in primary and secondary antibody deficiency', Clinical and Experimental Immunology. https://doi.org/10.1093/cei/uxaf065

Griffiths, K, Mellado, MR, Chung, R, Lally, J, McQueen, G, Sendt, K-V, Gillespie, A, Ibrahim, M, Richter, A, Shields, A, Ponsford, M, Jolles, S, Hodsoll, J, Pollak, TA, Upthegrove, R, Egerton, A & Maccabe, JH 2024, 'Changes in immunoglobulin levels during clozapine treatment in schizophrenia', Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, vol. 115, pp. 223-228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2023.10.001

Faustini, SE, Hodson, J, Birtwistle, J, Whitelegg, A, Masuka, S, Singo, M, Chigiga, J, Shields, A, Plant, T, Drayson, MT, Manavi, K, MacLennan, CA & Richter, AG 2024, 'Comparison of short- and long-term humoral immune responses to pneumococcal polysaccharide and glycoconjugate vaccines in an HIV-infected population', Journal of Infection, vol. 89, no. 5, 106282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2024.106282

Smith, P, Chicca, I, Heaney, J, Muchová, M, Khanim, F, Shields, A, Drayson, M, Chapple, I & Hirschfeld, J 2024, 'Paracetamol suppresses neutrophilic oxygen radicals through competitive inhibition and scavenging', Chemico-Biological Interactions, vol. 404, 111283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cbi.2024.111283

PANORAMIC Virology Group, Standing, JF, Buggiotti, L, Guerra-Assuncao, JA, Woodall, M, Ellis, S, Agyeman, AA, Miller, C, Okechukwu, M, Kirkpatrick, E, Jacobs, AI, Williams, CA, Roy, S, Martin-Bernal, LM, Williams, R, Smith, CM, Sanderson, T, Ashford, FB, Emmanuel, B, Afzal, ZM, Shields, A, Richter, AG, Dorward, J, Gbinigie, O, Van Hecke, O, Lown, M, Francis, N, Jani, B, Richards, DB, Rahman, NM, Yu, L-M, Thomas, NPB, Hart, ND, Evans, P, Andersson, M, Hayward, G, Hood, K, Nguyen-Van-Tam, JS, Little, P, Hobbs, FDR, Khoo, S, Butler, C, Lowe, DM & Breuer, J 2024, 'Randomized controlled trial of molnupiravir SARS-CoV-2 viral and antibody response in at-risk adult outpatients', Nature Communications, vol. 15, no. 1, 1652. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45641-0

Chadda, KR, Roberts, SA, Lugg, ST, Faniyi, AA, Faustini, SE, Webster, C, Duffy, JE, Hewison, M, Shields, A, Richter, AG, Parekh, D, Scott, A & Thickett, DR 2024, 'Vitamin D deficiency and duration of COVID-19 symptoms in UK healthcare workers', Frontiers in Medicine, vol. 11, 1494129. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2024.1494129

Shields, AM, Faustini, SE, Young, S, Terjesen, S, McCarthy, NI, Anderson, RL, Drayson, MT & Richter, AG 2023, 'Clinical and laboratory characteristics of patients with symptomatic secondary immunodeficiency following the treatment of haematological malignancies', EJHaem, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 339-349. https://doi.org/10.1002/jha2.683

Letter

Ho, A, Galgut, O, Faustini, S, Peters, N, Shields, A, Klenerman, P, Hopkins, S, Hall, V, Dunachie, S & Richter, A 2024, 'Implications of suboptimal measles immunity in UK health-care workers', The Lancet, vol. 404, no. 10447, pp. 23-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(24)01011-0

Fink, DL, Idilli, O, Shields, A, Richter, A & Burns, SO 2024, 'Prevalence of Anti-Interferon Alpha Auto-Antibodies in Patients with Antibody Deficiency', Journal of Clinical Immunology, vol. 44, 161. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10875-024-01761-2

Elhaj, MO, Richter, AG, Goddard, S & Shields, AM 2023, 'Dose reductions in immunoglobulin replacement are associated with increased antibiotic usage in patients with antibody deficiency', British Journal of Haematology, vol. 202, no. 4, pp. 900-903. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjh.18910