Origins of Child Health & Disease

Studying development to understand human disease

Events prior to birth can have a profound influence on the health of a child. In this theme, our focus is on understanding the earliest stages of development and how they impact child health, and beyond. This approach is necessarily intergenerational – as each child can trace their origin back to a single egg and sperm cell, derived from each of their parents. The sperm and egg contain the genetic and epigenetic information necessary to build a new individual – but this is only realised through the process of development. The early embryo must implant and establish the placenta to support onward embryonic development, therefore maternal health and placental function are also important determinants of child health. Finally, fetal growth and tissue maturation influence not only the ideal delivery time and any subsequent neonatal treatment, but also have a long-lasting influence on health.

Our theme spans the full breadth of research focus; from fundamental, discovery science through to translational research in specialties such as obstetrics, fetal-maternal medicine, perinatology and clinical genetics. We draw on the unique, pre-existing expertise in world-leading centres such as the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology and the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences and combine this with researchers and clinicians with relevant interests from across the College, as well as colleagues at the North West Thames Regional Genetics service.

Existing interests include the very earliest events during development such as germline development and gamete biology, pre-implantation development and pluripotent stem cell biology, post-implantation development of the embryo and the placenta, establishment of the body plan and tissue-specific development. In addition, theme members are involved in international multicentre trials in fetal growth restriction, in identifying and treating twin-to-twin transfusion, and in developing novel non-invasive methods of monitoring fetal and neonatal physiology. Translational interests also include the application of genomic analyses and disease modelling approaches to aid clinical diagnosis, develop new genetic tests and guide therapeutic approaches.

Our vision is to foster new multi-disciplinary, cross-site interactions focussed on understanding human development and how this impacts child health and disease.

Key research areas

Stem Cell Biology
Developmental Biology
Genetics
Epigenetics
Fetal development
Fetal-maternal medicine
Perinatology
Clinical Genetics

Theme leads

Dr Harry Leitch

Clinical Lecturer

Harry Leitch is an Academic Clinical Lecturer in Clinical Genetics in the Institute for Clinical Sciences, and leads the Germline & Pluripotency group at the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences.

Further information on Dr Leitch

Dr Jay Banerjee

Neonatal consultant and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer

Jay Banerjee is a Neonatal consultant at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and a Hon Senior Clinical Lecturer at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology, ICL. He leads neonatal haemodynamics research, has got significant interest in family integrated care research in neonatology and is part of the perinatology research group at the IRDB.

Further information on Dr Banerjee

Toby Andrew
Senior Lecturer

Santosh Atanur
Genome Data Scientist

Dr Veronique Azuara
Reader in Stem Cell Biology

Dr Jay Banerjee
Neonatal consultant and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer

Dr Petter Brodin
Garfield Weston Chair of Neonatology and Professor of Paediatric Immunology

Ines Cebola
Sir Henry Dale Fellow

Dr Hanna Creese
Research Associate

Dr Wei Cui
Senior Lecturer

Dr Piers Daubeney
Professor of Practice (Paediatric Cardiology)

Dr Josu De La Fuente
Consultant paediatric haematologist

Dr Charlotte Dean
Senior Lecturer

Dr Aniko Deierl
Neonatal consultant

Professor Vasso Episkopou
Professor in Developmental Biology

Professor Richard Festenstein
Clinical Professor of Molecular Medicine

Professor Stephen Franks
Clinical Professor

Professor Petra Hajkova
Professor of Developmental Epigenetics

Professor Aylin Hanyaloglu
Reader in Cell Biology

Professor Kate Hardy
Professor of Reproductive Biology

Dr Beth Holder
Lecturer in Maternal and Fetal Health

Dr Channa Jayasena
Reader in Reproductive Endocrinology

Professor Mark Johnson
Clinical Chair in Obstetrics

Dr Bernhard Kainz
Senior Lecturer

Dr Leena Karnik
Consultant paediatric haematologist

Dr Harry Leitch
Clinical Lecturer

Professor Liz Lightstone
Consul (clinical) for the Faculty of Medicine

Dr Richard Ma
NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow

Dr David MacIntyre
Reader in Reproductive Systems Medicine

Dr Victoria Male
Lecturer in Reproductive Immunology

Dr Enrique (Fadri) Martinez-Perez
Reader in Chromosome Biology

Professor Matthias Merkenschlager
Professor of Cell Biology

Dr Vicki Metzis
Sir Henry Dale Research Fellow

Professor Irene Miguel-Aliaga
Professor of Genetics and Physiology

Dr Michelle Percharde
Honorary Lecturer

Dr Rubén Pérez-Carrasco
Lecturer in Theoretical Systems Biology

Dr Tristan Rodríguez
Reader in Cell and Developmental Biology

Vanessa Sancho Shimizu
Senior Lecturer in Paediatric Infectious Disease

Dr Sundar Sathiyamurthy
Neonatal consultant

Dr Makrina Savvidou
Consultant (Obstetrics And Gynaecology)

Professor Sonia Saxena
Professor of Primary Care

Dr Nishel Shah
Honorary Clinical Lecturer

Dr Natasha Singh
Consultant (Obstetrics And Gynaecology)

Mikhail Spivakov
Honorary Senior Lecturer

Dr Lynne Sykes
NIHR Clinical Lecturer

Dr Vasso Terzidou
Clinical Senior Lecturer

Dr Juanma Vaquerizas
Max Planck Research Group Leader

Dr James Ware
Reader in Genomic Medicine

Dr Elizabeth Whittaker
Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer

Dr Angela Yulia
Consultant (Obstetrics And Gynaecology)

Imperial College London

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