About the Department

The Department of Paediatrics and Child Health is based on two sites with two joint heads of department: Professor Mark Gardiner at the Bloomsbury Campus and Professor Brent Taylor at the Royal Free Campus.

On the Bloomsbury Campus, the Department undertakes research into two main aspects of the basic science of childhood diseases: Molecular genetic studies of inherited childhood disease in the Centre for Paediatric Genetic Research (Professor Mark Gardiner) and studies of the mechanisms and prognostic significance of brain injury in the newborn in the Centre for Perinatal Brain Research (Professor John Wyatt).

The department on the Bloomsbury Campus is based in laboratory and office accommodation in 5 University Street. Facilities include newly refurbished laboratory space fully equipped for molecular genetic research and laboratory facilities for magnetic resonance and near infrared spectroscopy.

Fundamental studies of cerebral metabolism in neonates have been accompanied by successful clinical research using magnetic resonance spectroscopy to monitor brain oxygenation and blood flow in ill babies, during and after birth.

Molecular genetic analysis of genetic diseases of childhood is being undertaken using new molecular biological techniques. Diseases being investigated include the neuronal ceroid lipofuscinoses, familial epilepsies, familial rectal pain, primary ciliary dyskinesia and pyloric stenosis.

The wide range of laboratory-based scientific work provides research experience for clinical training fellows and for non-clinical graduate students and postdoctoral workers. Clinically trained research fellows are employed under the terms of various grants from the MRC, Wellcome Trust, Action Research and other grant-giving bodies. Appropriate involvement in clinical work is maintained, ensuring that training experience is appropriate for a clinical academic career. The department's success in training clinical academics is attested by the fact that six former research fellows have become professors in charge of academic departments of paediatrics in the UK.

This page last modified 10 October, 2006 by Emma Laxton