Rosalind Louise Smyth

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Rosalind Louise Smyth
Born (1958-09-28) 28 September 1958 (age 65)
Belfast, Northern Ireland
NationalityBritish and Irish
Alma mater Clare College Cambridge; Westminster Medical School; University of London

Rosalind Louise Smyth CBE (born 28 September 1958) is an Irish-British paediatrician. She is Professor of Child Health at UCL the Director of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health from 2012 until 2022. She has been Vice Dean Research in the UCL Faculty of Population Health Sciences since 2022.

Contents

Early life

She was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and attended Down High School. [1] She went on to study at Clare College, Cambridge (BA 1980; MA 1984), and Westminster Medical School, University of London (MB BS 1983).

Career

She trained in paediatrics in London, Cambridge (MD 1993) and Liverpool. Until September 2012, she was Professor of Paediatric Medicine in at the University of Liverpool and Executive Director of Liverpool Health Partners. From 2005 to 2012 she was Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Medicines for Children Research Network, which supported all clinical research with children in England. She is a Fellow and former Council member of the Academy of Medical Sciences (UK). She was a clinical medicine sub-panel member of the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise and the 2014 Research Evaluation Framework and numerous grant awarding bodies. She was a member of the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency's Commission on Human Medicines (2009–2013) and chaired its Paediatric Medicines Expert Advisory Group (2002–13). [2] She was appointed a CBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours list in 2015 for services to the regulation drugs for children. [3] She has a strong commitment to Open Access publishing and was a Director of the Public Library of Science 2006–2016. [4] She is a Governor and Trustee of the Health Foundation (2016), [5] Trustee of The Medical Research Foundation and The Lister Institute. She was chair of the MRC's Clinical Careers and Training Committee from 2017 until 2022. She is Chair of the MRC's Training and Careers Group, since 2022.

Honours

Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2006); [6] NIHR Senior Investigator (2008), Fellow (Honorary) of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine (2010), Fellow of the European Respiratory Society (2014), [7] Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the regulation of medicines for children (2015), Member of the Academia Europaea (2018) [8]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cystic fibrosis</span> Medical condition

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetic disorder inherited in an autosomal recessive manner that impairs the normal clearance of mucus from the lungs, which facilitates the colonization and infection of the lungs by bacteria, notably Staphylococcus aureus. CF is a rare genetic disorder that affects mostly the lungs, but also the pancreas, liver, kidneys, and intestine. The hallmark feature of CF is the accumulation of thick mucus in different organs. Long-term issues include difficulty breathing and coughing up mucus as a result of frequent lung infections. Other signs and symptoms may include sinus infections, poor growth, fatty stool, clubbing of the fingers and toes, and infertility in most males. Different people may have different degrees of symptoms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bronchiolitis</span> Blockage of the small airways in the lungs due to a viral infection

Bronchiolitis is inflammation of the small airways in the lungs. Acute bronchiolitis is due to a viral infection usually affecting children younger than two years of age. Symptoms may include fever, cough, runny nose, wheezing, and breathing problems. More severe cases may be associated with nasal flaring, grunting, or the skin between the ribs pulling in with breathing. If the child has not been able to feed properly, signs of dehydration may be present.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Respiratory syncytial virus</span> Species of virus

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), also called human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) and human orthopneumovirus, is a contagious virus that causes infections of the respiratory tract. It is a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA virus. Its name is derived from the large cells known as syncytia that form when infected cells fuse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interstitial lung disease</span> Group of diseases

Interstitial lung disease (ILD), or diffuse parenchymal lung disease (DPLD), is a group of respiratory diseases affecting the interstitium and space around the alveoli of the lungs. It concerns alveolar epithelium, pulmonary capillary endothelium, basement membrane, and perivascular and perilymphatic tissues. It may occur when an injury to the lungs triggers an abnormal healing response. Ordinarily, the body generates just the right amount of tissue to repair damage, but in interstitial lung disease, the repair process is disrupted, and the tissue around the air sacs (alveoli) becomes scarred and thickened. This makes it more difficult for oxygen to pass into the bloodstream. The disease presents itself with the following symptoms: shortness of breath, nonproductive coughing, fatigue, and weight loss, which tend to develop slowly, over several months. The average rate of survival for someone with this disease is between three and five years. The term ILD is used to distinguish these diseases from obstructive airways diseases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorothy Hansine Andersen</span> American physician (1901–1963)

Dorothy Hansine Andersen was the American physician and researcher who first identified and named cystic fibrosis. During her almost thirty year tenure at Babies Hospital of Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, Andersen not only identified CF and its inheritance through a recessive gene, she was also at the forefront of developing diagnostic tests and life-extending treatments for the disease. Andersen was also active in researching other diseases that are diagnosed in children. She was the first to describe Glycogen storage disease type IV, which, in recognition of her contributions, became known as Andersen's Disease. Her research on heart malformations informed the development of open heart surgery and the training of new surgeons.

Mary Ellen Beck Wohl was Chief of the Division of Respiratory Diseases at Children's Hospital Boston, and served as Associate Director of the General Clinical Research Center until 2002. Since the 1962, when she first joined the staff at Children's Hospital, Wohl specialized in the respiratory diseases of children. She was also a leader in the field of clinical research on cystic fibrosis. She developed a number of techniques to evaluate the function of the lungs in young children and is the author of many research papers in this field.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health</span>

The UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH) is an academic department of the Faculty of Population Health Sciences of University College London (UCL) and is located in London, United Kingdom. It was founded in 1946 and together with its clinical partner Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), forms the largest concentration of children's health research in Europe. In 1996 the Institute merged with University College London. Current research focusses on broad biomedical topics within child health, ranging from developmental biology, to genetics, to immunology and epidemiology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alimuddin Zumla</span> British-Zambian physician

Sir Alimuddin Zumla,, FRCP, FRCPath, FRSB is a British-Zambian professor of infectious diseases and international health at University College London Medical School. He specialises in infectious and tropical diseases, clinical immunology, and internal medicine, with a special interest in HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, and diseases of poverty. He is known for his leadership of infectious/tropical diseases research and capacity development activities. He was awarded a Knighthood in the 2017 Queens Birthday Honours list for services to public health and protection from infectious disease. In 2012, he was awarded Zambia's highest civilian honour, the Order of the Grand Commander of Distinguished services - First Division. In 2023, for the sixth consecutive year, Zumla was recognised by Clarivate Analytics, Web of Science as one of the world's top 1% most cited researchers. In 2021 Sir Zumla was elected as Fellow of The World Academy of Sciences.

Catherine S. Peckham FFPHM is a British paediatrician.

Claire E. Wainwright is a paediatric respiratory physician and professor of pediatrics, residing and working in Queensland. She commenced her medical training in London and completed her specialist training at the Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane. She is now head of the Cystic Fibrosis Service at the Queensland Children's Hospital and a professor of pediatric medicine at the University of Queensland, Australia. Wainwright has published numerous academic papers focusing upon her main area of interest; the impacts of fungal infections upon children with cystic fibrosis. However, her interests also expand to include other airway complications within children.

Sharon Jayne Peacock is a British microbiologist who is Professor of Public Health and Microbiology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Cambridge. Peacock also sits on Cambridge University Council.

Jane C. Davies is a British physician who is Professor of Paediatric Respirology at Imperial College School of Medicine. She is an Honorary Consultant at the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christina Pagel</span> British German mathematician

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Rosalind Raine is a British applied health research scientist, public medicine doctor, professor of health care evaluation and the founding head of the Department of Applied Health Research at University College London (UCL).

Elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor, sold under the brand names Trikafta and Kaftrio, is a fixed-dose combination medication used to treat cystic fibrosis. Elexacaftor/tezacaftor/ivacaftor is composed of a combination of ivacaftor, a chloride channel opener, and elexacaftor and tezacaftor, CFTR modulators.

Russell Mardon Viner, FMedSci is an Australian-British paediatrician and policy researcher who is Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department for Education and Professor of Adolescent Health at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. He is an expert on child and adolescent health in the UK and internationally. He was a member of the UK Government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) during the COVID-19 pandemic and was President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health from 2018 to 2021. He remains clinically active, seeing young people with diabetes each week at UCL Hospitals. Viner is Vice-Chair of the NHS England Transformation Board for Children and Young People and Chair of the Stakeholder Council for the Board. He is a non-executive director (NED) at Great Ormond St. Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, also sitting on the Trust's Finance & Investment and the Quality and Safety sub-committees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shabir Madhi</span> South African physician and professor

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Catherine Ann Byrnes is a New Zealand academic paediatrician, and is a full professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in respiratory disease in children, including cystic fibrosis and infectious diseases.

References

  1. http://www.thedownrecorder.co.uk/pages/?title=Newcastle_woman_who_became_one_of_UK%92s_top_kids%92_doctors
  2. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=1F6C741BD082726A83A0E844AC6FC530?doi=10.1.1.432.1708&rep=rep1&type=pdf [ bare URL PDF ]
  3. "CBE Honour". www.ucl.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 15 April 2016.
  4. "Public Library of Science: Board of Directors". www.plos.org. Archived from the original on 9 June 2010. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  5. "Professor Rosalind Smyth CBE FMedSci - the Health Foundation".
  6. "Fellow | Academy of Medical Sciences". www.acmedsci.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2 August 2016.
  7. "Fellow of ERS (FERS) | European Respiratory Society". www.ersnet.org. Archived from the original on 27 December 2016.
  8. "Academia Europaea: Rosalind Smyth" . Retrieved 7 November 2023.