Professor Manu Shankar-Hari is Professor of Critical Care Medicine and Director of the Centre for Critical Illness Research in the Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine. He leads an internationally recognised, cross-disciplinary translational research programme spanning mechanistic discovery, clinical trials, and clinical practice-changing guidelines, focused on the global challenge of sepsis and sepsis survivorship. His work integrates immunobiology and clinical sciences to define critical illness phenotypes, advance drug repurposing and target discovery, and enable precision immunomodulation in critically ill patients, with a particular focus on critical illness due to infections (i.e., sepsis).

In recognition of his scientific leadership and contributions to medicine, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 2025.

Publications

Please see the publicatoins list on ORCID Profile

Awards

2025 Fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland’s National Academy
2024 Michael Ward Lecturer, Sepsis Canada
2023 Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Healthcare Data Analytics
2022 Finalist, Medical Leaders of the Year at Scottish Asian & Business Awards
2019 International Sepsis Forum Lowry-Fink Fellowship
2017 ANZICS Global Rising Star Award

Current active grants

2026

Grant Title: A phase 2 randomised clinical trial to evaluate the efficacy of anakinra in patients with the acute respiratory distress syndrome (AnakARDS)
Granting Body: EME Programme
Value: £2.4 Million (GBP)
Role: Co-applicant

2025

Grant Title: GuARDS Trial - Australia.
Granting Body: MRFF2035967
Value: $1.89 Million Australian dollars (AUD)
Role: Co-CI

Grant Title: Modulating interleukin-6 pathways to understand the effect of systemic inflammation on detrimental neuroinflammation following Traumatic Brain Injury
Granting Body: MRC Experimental Medicine
Value: £2.6 million (GBP)
Role: Mentor to primary applicant and Project co-lead

Grant Title: Advancing the Cellular Investigative Workflow in Regeneration & Repair through Imaging & Spectral Cell Sorting
Granting Body: MRC Equip (Capital grant)
Value: £753,106 (GBP)
Role: Co-Lead

2024

Grant Title: Post-Sepsis Platform Trial: Statin Pilot RCT
Granting Body: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Value: $448,925 Canadian Dollars (CAD)
Role: Co-Lead

Grant Title: Post-Sepsis Platform Trial: Statin Pilot RCT
Granting Body: Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
Value: $112,231 Canadian Dollars (CAD)
Role: Co-Lead

2023

Grant Title: Glucocorticoids in Adults With Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome: Randomised Clinical Trial (GuARDS Trial)
Granting Body: NIHR – HTA
Value: £2.23 million (GBP)
Role: Lead applicant and CI

Grant Title: FLuid strategies and Inflammatory Phenotypes in the SepTIC trial (FLIP-SepTIC)
Granting Body: NIHR – EME Programme
Value: £2.23 million (GBP)
Role: Lead applicant and CI

2022

Grant Title: Time critical precision medicine for acute critical illness using treatable trait principles: TRAITS Programme
Granting Body: Chief Scientist’s Office, Scotland
Value: £349,996 (GBP)
Role: Mentor to Lead applicant and co-applicant

Grant Title: The Corticosteroid Early and Extended (CORT-E2) Randomized Controlled Trial
Granting Body: CIHR
Value: $3.4Million (CAD)
Role: Co-applicant

Grant Title: The Corticosteroid Early and Extended (CORT-E2) Randomized Controlled Trial
Granting Body: CIHR
Value: £196,000 (GBP)
Role: Co-applicant

2021

Grant Title: Evaluating the clinical and cost-effectiveness of Sodium Bicarbonate administration for critically ill patients with Acute Kidney Injury (MOSAICC Multicentre evaluation Of Sodium bicarbonate in Acute kidney Injury in Critical Care)
Granting Body: NIHR - HTA
Value: £2.24Million (GBP)
Role: Co-applicant

Grant Title: Early Vasopressors in Sepsis (EVIS)
Granting Body: NIHR - HTA
Value: £2.91 Million (GBP)
Role: Co-applicant