Dr Julian Naglik graduated with a BSc from the University of East London in 1992 and obtained his PhD from King’s College London in 2001, studying the expression of the secreted aspartyl proteinases in the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans. He was appointed Lecturer in 2006, Reader in 2013 and Professor in 2016. Previously, he also undertook roles as a visiting research scientist at the Robert Koch Institute (Berlin, Germany) as well as the University of California San Francisco (USA).

 Julian is currently Professor of Fungal Pathogenesis and Immunology in the Centre for Host-Microbiome Interactions, Faculty of Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Sciences at King’s College London. He has made several major scientific, conceptual, and technical advancements including developing in vivo transcript profiling from clinical samples, identifying the epithelial signalling pathways that discriminate between commensal and pathogenic forms of C. albicans, and the recent discovery of candidalysin. Candidalysin is the first cytolytic peptide toxin identified in any human fungal pathogen and is the essential factor that drives damage and epithelial signalling during C. albicans mucosal infections.

His discovery of candidalysin has been recognised as a seminal advance in microbiology and has transformed the field of Candida pathogenesis. Candidalysin is patented  in the USA and Europe. His research has been supported by the Wellcome Trust, Medical Research Council (MRC), Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and National Institutes of Health (NIH). He has been an associate or academic editor for several journals and has received research awards from King's College London, the German Mycological Society, Heinz Maurer-Prize, and the German Society for Hygiene and Microbiology. In 2015, he became an Honorary Member of the British Society of Medical Mycology.