Background
I am in the unique position of being the only Professor of Genetics and Fetal Medicine in the UK, and was appointed to this chair at the Institute of Child Health, University College London in 2009; I am also a Consultant in the Fetal Medicine Unit at University College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. I have published extensively on prenatal diagnosis, and the ultrasound screening of fetal abnormalities, specifically fetal skeletal abnormalities, and was responsible for the creation of the fetal size standards now in use throughout the UK and beyond. I was a member of the National Screening Committee on Routine Fetal Anomaly Scanning for some years. I am also an editor of the journal, Prenatal Diagnosis, and have recently been elected to the board of the International Society of Prenatal Diagnosis. I was recently been appointed as the Clinical Director of the NIHR Clinical Research Network: North Thames.
Main Interests/Achievements
My main current research interest is in non-invasive prenatal diagnosis and I leads a five-year Programme Grant from the National Institute of Health Research (Rapid Accurate Prenatal non-Invasive Diagnosis (RAPID) - an integrated project to refine and implement safer antenatal testing) which is designed to develop the standards for routine implementation of this exciting new technology.
Grants (last 5 years/current)
2013 - 2015 | NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Research (extension): Reliable accurate pre-natal non-invasive diagnosis (RAPID) - an integrated project to refine and implement safer antenatal testing - £271,195* (Chitty, Morris, White, Crolla, Kent, Lench, Farndon, Skirton, Hill, Fisher, Kroese, Wright, McEwan) |
2013 - 2015 | GOSH UCL BRC Industry Collaboration Grant. New approaches to next generation sequencing (NGS) of cell free DNA in maternal plasma - £63,717 |
2013 - 2017 | Genome Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Research. Personalised Genomics for prenatal Aneuploidy Screening Using maternal blood (PEGASUS) - £689,444. (Rousseau, Langlois, Chitty and 24 others) |
2012 - 2012 | GOSH/UCL Institute of Child Health Biomedical Research Centre (GOSH BRC). Development of rapid and comprehensive pre- and post-natal diagnosis of skeletal dysplasias - £29,020 |
2012 - 2014 | Newlife Foundation for Disabled Children. Non-invasive prenatal diagnosis of specific genetic conditions: the micro-deletion syndromes - £115,660. (Raymond, Chitty, White) |
2011 - 2012 | Great Ormond Street Children's Charity: Prenatal congenital abnormalities - £381,126. (Scott, Chitty) |
2011 - 2014 | MRC/NIHR Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation Programme: EACH Study: Evaluation of array comparative genomic hybridisation and non-invasive prenatal diagnosis using cell free fetal DNA in prenatal diagnosis of fetal anomalies - £1,6000,000 (Robson, Chitty, Morris, Graham, Wellesley, Fisher, Ambler)* |
2011 - 2014 | European Union: Genetic testing in Europe - Network for the further development, harmonization, validation and standardization of services (Eurogentest2) - £58,049.00 (Matthijs, Chitty and 12 others) |
2011 - 2013 | SPARKS Project Grant: Prevention of neural tube defects by Inositol: The PONTTI Trial - £67,111) (Copp, Greene, Chitty, Mills) |
2009 - 2014 | NIHR Programme Grant for Applied Research: Reliable accurate prenatal non-invasive diagnosis (RAPID) - an integrated project to refine and implement safer antenatal testing - £2,053,811 (Chitty, Crolla, White, Lench, Avent, Westwood, Altman, Burton, Farndon, Soothill, Morris, Kent)* |