David Denning is Professor of Medicine and Medical Mycology at The University of Manchester. He balances responsibilities at a regional reference laboratory with his research. He has described new clinical syndromes including invasive aspergillosis in AIDS, raised intracranial pressure in cryptococcal meningitis, and severe asthma with fungal sensitisation He has contributed to introducing effective treatments including the randomised controlled study of voriconazole and amphotericin B, which demonstrated a 13% improvement in Mortality. He initiated the Aspergillus fumigatus genome project and subsequently brokered all the collaborative arrangements over meta-analysis of the Aspergilli genomes with great potential for future drug design and allergen identification.