Dr Lara Payne

About

Lara is passionate about improving health outcomes for marginalised and disadvantaged peoples. She has completed her medical degree in the UK at Imperial College London. Prior to this she obtained a Master’s degree from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has completed a Diploma in Travel Medicine and has endeavoured to integrate her clinical career with her enthusiasm for academic medicine.

Research interests

Lara's research interest is Neglected Tropical Diseases particularly Schistosomiasis; she led a research team in Zambia looking at the sero-prevalence of schistosomiasis in a rural area, where locals had presented with advanced oesophageal varices but the prevalence of S.mansoni in that area was unknown.

Lara was an Academic Foundation Program Trainee in HIV and Genitourinary medicine in Brighton and completed her 5 years Speciality Training in Infectious Diseases and Microbiology in University College Hospital, Guy's and St Thomas' and King's College Hospital.

She has contributed to several publications from collaborative projects; schistosomiasis project, VRE in ICU project and the National MPox clinical audit. Lara worked with colleagues at St Thomas’ on the identification and named a new species of bacteria linked to prosthetic graft infection and presented this as a case report at ECCMID in 2022.

Teaching

Lara was a committee member of the London Infection Trainee Representatives (LondonInfectionReps) for 2 years organising monthly Regional Training Days delivering the Postgraduate Curriculum to ID, Microbiology and Virology Trainees in the London and KSS Deanery. She is looking forward to working as Year 4 Speciality Lead and sharing her enthusiasm for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology!

Professional

1. *The first reported case of human infection with Variovorax durovernensis; a novel Variovorax sp. Isolated from the prosthetic aortic graft of a shepherd, L Payne, A Alcolea-Medina, LB Snell, C Alder, T Charalampous, JD Turnbull, JD Edgeworth, R Batra, J Klein, A Goodman, Clinical Infection in Practice, Volume 21, 2024, 100332,ISSN 2590-1702, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clinpr.2023.100332

2. * Variovorax durovernensis sp. nov., a novel species isolated from an infected prosthetic aortic graft in a human, Alcolea-Medina A, Snell LB, Payne L, Alder CJ, Turnbull JD, Charalampous T, Bryan L, Klein JL, Edgeworth JD, Batra R, Goodman AL.. Int J Syst Evol Microbiol. 2023 Dec;73(12). doi: 10.1099/ijsem.0.006184. PMID: 38050797.

3. *An Update on Schistosomiasis, L Payne, L. Chiodini, A.Bustinduy, August 2023, Clinical Microbiology Newsletter 45(15):125-132, DOI: 10.1016/j.clinmicnews.2023.08.001
I wrote this review article on the current diagnostics for human schistosomiasis.