Portex Unit

In Paediatric Anaesthesia, we have a particular interest in the monitoring of brain activity during drug-induced sleep.  We have improved our understanding of pain mechanisms in the developing child, investigating novel pain-relieving therapies.  The clinical research programme in Intensive Care Medicine is developing new treatments for the systemic inflammatory response to infection or injury. 

Respiratory Physiology is a strong focus within the Theme, investigating lung growth and development in health and disease using specialised lung function tests that can be used from birth throughout childhood. These are used to investigate long-term impact of childhood respiratory disease and adverse environmental factors on subsequent lung health, with particular emphasis on cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anaemia and long-term follow up after extremely preterm delivery.

The paediatric respiratory service at GOSH cares for a large number of children with both common and rare clinical conditions. We run a variety of research projects to investigate in detail the pathophysiology, clinical course, effective therapy and functional impairments of some of these conditions.

The academic Physiotherapy team at the Portex Unit is closely associated with the clinical physiotherapists delivering care at Great Ormond Street Hospital and is actively involved with a wide range of research activities, from evaluating On-Call cardiorespiratory physiotherapy services, to validating exercise tests in children with chronic lung disease, to standardising gait measurements in children with balance disorders.  The team is also heavily involved with post-graduate teaching, running two advanced physiotherapy MSc, Diploma & Certificate programs at UCL, one in Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy and another in Paediatric Physiotherapy. 

The Applied and Human Physiology group (UCL Centre for Altitude Space and Extreme Environment Medicine) study healthy humans under conditions of dynamic physiological stress, often in extreme environment such as high altitude.  The aim of this work is to improve understanding of pathophysiology in patients exposed to physiological stress, particularly patients with critical illness. 

By involving so many efforts under the main umbrella of the Portex Unit, we are able to provide the highest quality care and research for the NHS.  In addition, the Portex Unit is well situated to foster collaborative efforts between its home base at the Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital, the Rayne Institute and University College London Hospitals.