Researcher profile

Dan Wootton

Dan Wootton is a Senior Clinical Lecturer at the University of Liverpool and Honorary Consultant Respiratory Physician at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. His research focuses on respiratory infection, particularly community- and hospital-acquired pneumonia, and on translating advances in diagnostics, microbiology and therapeutics into better patient outcomes and more precise antimicrobial use. He led the £1.4 million NIHR Advanced Fellowship programme and HAP-FAST trial evaluating contemporary imaging and rapid molecular diagnostics for non-ventilator-associated hospital-acquired pneumonia. His wider collaborative research spans chronic respiratory infection, bronchiectasis and cystic fibrosis, respiratory microbiome science, vaccine immunity, antimicrobial resistance and clinical trials. He is Co-Lead of the University of Liverpool Infection Resilience Research Frontier and contributes to national and international research strategy, evidence standards and health policy. Roles have included membership of the NICE Pneumonia Guideline Committee, the James Lind Alliance Community-Acquired Pneumonia Priority Setting Partnership, the European Respiratory Society programme developing core outcomes for pneumonia trials, and NIHR research funding assessment. His work has contributed to national pneumonia guidance, identification of patient and clinician research priorities, standardisation of outcomes for pneumonia trials and development of new approaches to hospital-acquired pneumonia diagnosis and antimicrobial stewardship. He supervises and mentors clinical academic trainees and works across NHS, academic and industry partnerships to build translational research capacity in respiratory infection.