Professor Andrew Bush
Andrew Bush is Professor of Paediatrics and Head of Section (Paediatrics, Imperial College London), Professor of Paediatric Respirology, National Heart and Lung Institute, and Consultant Paediatric Chest Physician, Royal Brompton Harefield NHS Foundation Trust.

He trained at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and University College Hospital, London. He did his house jobs at Stafford General Infirmary and University College Hospital, London. After SHO and Registrar posts in adult medicine, he obtained the MD degree in The Department of Clinical Physiology, as a British Heart Foundation Junior Fellow supervised by Professor David Denison, in the field of pulmonary circulatory physiology.

His research interests include the invasive and non-invasive measurement of airway inflammation in children, in particular the use of endobronchial biopsy in the management of severe asthma, and also respiratory mass spectrometry.

Professor Sejal Saglani
Sejal Saglani leads the Paediatric Severe Asthma Group within the Section of Inflammation, Repair and Development and is Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine, Royal Brompton Hospital.

She completed her undergraduate degree in medicine at the University of Leicester and undertook her clinical specialist training in Respiratory Paediatrics in the Thames Region. She undertook her postgraduate degree, funded by Asthma UK, at the NHLI investigating the pathology of severe infant and preschool wheeze and received the NHLI Thesis prize for best thesis.

Subsequent to obtaining her clinical specialist training, Prof Saglani obtained a British Lung Foundation Research Fellowship to develop a neonatal mouse model of allergic airways disease, following which she was awarded a Wellcome Intermediate Clinical Fellowship to investigate the mechanisms mediating the onset of preschool wheeze and asthma in early life. She has since been awarded an MRC New Investigator Award, and currently has an NIHR Career Development Fellowship. She was awarded the European Respiratory Society Young Investigator Award for Paediatric Research in 2009, and The European Respiratory Society Romain Pauwels Award for Excellence in Translational Respiratory Research in 2015.

Professor Saglani’s research is focussed on investigating the mechanisms underpinning the onset of severe preschool wheeze, factors predicting progression to school-age asthma and identification of novel therapies for preschool wheeze and childhood severe asthma.

Dr Louise Fleming
Dr Louise Fleming completed her undergraduate degree in medicine at the University of Manchester before moving to London for postgraduate training in Paediatrics. This included an 18 month VSO/RCPCH Fellowship in The Gambia.

Dr Fleming undertook postgraduate research at NHLI and the Royal Brompton Hospital, funded by the British Lung Foundation, under the supervision of Professor Andrew Bush and Dr Nicola Wilson. She carried out a randomised controlled trial investigating the use of inflammatory markers to guide management in children with severe asthma leading to the award of an MD degree.

Dr Fleming’s research interests include characterizing problematic severe asthma; monitoring asthma including use of biomarkers; determinants of adherence; identification of novel therapeutic targets and non-pharmacological management of asthma including behavior change. She is the clinical lead for asthma at the Royal Brompton where she has developed the difficult asthma protocol and the National Registry for children with difficult asthma. She is a member of the BTS Specialist Advisory Group for Severe Asthma, a member of the BTS/SIGN clinical guidelines group and Chair of the Asthma UK Health Professionals Council.

General information