Dr Omar Usmani

Omar Usmani MB BS, PhD, FHEA, FRCP, FERS, is Professor of Respiratory Medicine at the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI), Imperial College London & Consultant Physician at the Royal Brompton Hospital (RBH) and St Mary's Hospital London. He is Clinical Director of Respiratory Trials at ICRRU (Imperial College Respiratory Research Unit). His Clinical Specialist areas are Asthma, COPD and Chronic Cough. He is Group Leader of the Clinical Research Group within the Airway Disease Section at NHLI and a Principal Investigator. His Research Themes are Inhaled Drug Delivery, Small Airways Physiology, Lung Imaging, Respiratory Pharmacology and Tele-monitoring / E-health. Professor Usmani is an International Authority on Aerosol Science and Inhalation Medicine whose research has fundamentally contributed to the understanding of therapeutic aerosol deposition and clinical effectiveness in inhaled drug delivery to the lungs. He is Co-Director of Imperial's Network of Excellence in Aerosols and Health established in 2021. In 2015, Professor Usmani was awarded one of the highest accolades in Aerosol Science, the Thomas T Mercer Award from the American Association of Aerosol Research (AAAR) and the International Society of Aerosols in Medicine (ISAM), recognising his International Research Excellence in Pharmaceutical Aerosols and Inhalable Materials. He first attended ISAM in 2001 to present his initial findings from his doctoral thesis and 20 years later, in 2021, he was elected by ISAM members to the position President-elect of ISAM. In 2019, Professor Usmani was awarded Fellow of the European Respiratory Society (FERS). Between 2017-20 he was Secretary of Assembly 5, and 2020-23, he was voted by the ERS Assembly 5 members as Head of Assembly 5 (Airway Diseases - Asthma, COPD, Chronic Cough). In 2022, he was a recipient of a prestigious ERS Teaching Award, in recognition of his dedicated contributions to ERS educational content development. Professor Usmani is currently a committee member of the ERS HERMES examination committee in adult respiratory medicine. As Chair of the UK Inhaler Group (UKIG), working with Asthma UK, he oversaw the production of a series of validated videos on inhaler technique and he represents UKIG on the Medicines Optimisation Working Group, part of the Taskforce on Lung Health. He was Chair of the Guidelines Working Party that developed the Inhaler Choice Guideline for UK healthcare professionals in 2017, which was updated in 2020. Professor Usmani was appointed Co-Deputy Director of Imperial's MBBS Phase 1 programme in 2021, is the Head of Phase 1c (Year 3) and Clinical Module Lead of CSI (Clinical Scientific Integration), a flagship Module in Imperial's new MBBS curriculum. He is an external examiner to the University of Southampton MBBS programme. Since 2014, Professor Usmani has organised Outreach Events as part of Imperial's widening participation programme to London secondary and primary school pupils on STEM activities at Imperial College.