Our people

Professor Thomas Voit is Director of the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) BRC, Professor and Honorary Consultant of Paediatrics at GOSH, and Vice-Dean for Enterprise at UCL’s Faculty of Population Health Sciences. Thomas is a leader in translational medicine with a focus on genetics, gene therapy and neuromuscular diseases. Read more.

Lucy Wedderburn is Professor in Paediatric Rheumatology at ICH, Director of Arthritis Research UK Centre for Adolescent Rheumatology at UCL GOSH, theme lead of GOSH BRC's Rare Disease Cohorts and UCL Hospitals, and GOSH/UCL Hospitals consultant. Her research interests are T cell immunology, immune regulation and muscle biology, with a major focus upon human T cell responses and immune regulation.

Lyn Chitty is Deputy Director of the NIHR Great Ormond Street Hospital BRC and a Professor of Genetics and Fetal Medicine at Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, NIHR Senior Investigator and Clinical Director of the North Thames Genomic Medicine Centre. Lyn’s research interest include non-invasive prenatal diagnosis, screening for fetal abnormalities and implementation of sequencing for prenatal diagnosis. 

Dr Jenny Rivers is the Deputy Director of Research and Innovation at GOSH, overseeing the wide range of research taking place across the Trust. Jenny joined GOSH in November 2018 from the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Foundation Trust where she was Associate Director of Research, having previous experience of research management within higher education.

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Dr Laura Turner is Deputy Director of Operations at the NIHR GOSH Biomedical Research Centre. Laura has a wide range of experience of basic and translational research and operational management across multiple sectors including academia, charity, industry and the NHS. Prior to joining GOSH, Laura was the Research Manager for the Precision Medicine division of the NIHR Guy’s and St Thomas’ BRC.

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Professor Rosalind Smyth is Director of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH), Honorary Consultant Respiratory Paediatrician at GOSH and Non-Executive Director of GOSH NHS Foundation Trust. Her research interests include clinical studies of viral/host interactions in RSV bronchiolitis, clinical trials and systematic reviews of treatments for childhood respiratory disease.

Professor Adrian Thrasher is Lead for the Gene, Stem and Cellular Therapies theme. Adrian is Head of the Infection, Immunity, Inflammation and Physiological Medicine Programme at ICH, and Honorary Consultant Immunologist at GOSH. Adrian has also been awarded a Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellowship. His research interests concentrate on the restoration of function in immunodeficiency diseases.

Waseem Qasim is Professor of Cell and Gene Therapy at ICH and Consultant in Paediatric Immunology/BMT at GOSH and an NIHR Research Professor. His research is centred on diagnosing and treating immune disorders, improving immune recovery after haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and gene based therapies. 

Professor Sowden is Professor of Developmental Biology & Genetics at ICH, NIHR Senior Investigator and theme lead for the Advanced Treatments for Structural Malformations and Tissue Damage theme. Her research aims to define the molecular genetic pathways that regulate eye development, to understand how these pathways are disrupted in congenital eye disease, and to devise new strategies to repair and regenerate the diseased retina.

Paolo De Coppi is a Consultant Paediatric Surgeon at GOSH and Professor and Head of Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine at ICH. Mr De Coppi has a special interest in congenital malformations and their treatment using minimally invasive techniques. He has focused his research interests on stem cells and tissue engineering by trying to find new modalities for the treatment of complex congenital anomalies.

Professor Francesco Muntoni is the lead for the Novel Therapies for Translation in Childhood Diseases Theme. Francesco is a Clinical Paediatric Neurologist with an interest in molecular aspects of neuromuscular disorders. He is the head of the Dubowitz Neuromuscular Centre at GOSH, a leading clinical and research centre specialising in paediatric neuromuscular disorders. Francesco is also chair of the ICH Developmental Neurosciences Programme. Read more.

Professor Paul Gissen is an Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Metabolic Medicine at GOSH and ICH and Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Sciences. His research interest is in inborn errors of metabolism including analysis of the pathophysiology of Arthrogryposis, Renal Dysfunction and Cholestasis syndrome. 

Ruth Gilbert is Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. She is the Co-Director of the NIHR Children and Families Policy Research Unit, Theme Lead for Public Health within Health Data Research London and deputy theme lead of GOSH BRC's Rare Disease Cohorts. Her research has a strong focus on using anonymised, administrative data to address clinical and policy questions for children and families.

Dr Darren Hargrave is a Consultant Paediatric Oncologist at GOSH and Reader in Paediatric Neurooncology at ICH. His research interests include the biology of childhood brain tumours, the use of innovative imaging techniques in childhood cancer and drug development of targeted therapies in childhood and adolescent oncology. 

Christopher O’Callaghan is Professor of Respiratory, theme lead for GOSH BRC's Translational Research & Enterprise Accelerator and Paediatric Medicine and Head of Respiratory, Critical Care & Anaesthesia at GOSH and ICH. His research focusses on novel diagnostic methods for children with rare respiratory conditions.

Philippa Mills is an Associate Professor of Inherited Paediatric Metabolic Disorders at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, Lead for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion at UCL GOS ICH and theme lead of GOSH BRC's Experimental Medicine Academy. Her research interests include discovering the origins of disease for children with inherited metabolic disorders; using this knowledge of the metabolic biochemical pathways in parallel with next generation sequencing methodologies to facilitate identification of candidate genes in patients, mutations in which are then investigated further in model systems. 

Dr Despina Eleftheriou is an Associate Professor in Paediatric and Adolescent Rheumatology. She has worked at GOSH since 2006 and runs clinics for vasculitis, arthritis and scleroderma patients.

Dr Stephen Marks is a Reader, Consultant Paediatric Nephrologist and Clinical Lead for renal transplantation at GOSH. He is the interim Director of the NIHR GOSH Clinical Research Facility (CRF), which is part supported through the NIHR GOSH BRC. The CRF provides specialist day care accommodation for children and young people taking part in clinical research studies. William is a Consultant Paediatric Nephrologist at GOSH and Clinical Director for NHS Engagement. His research interests include children’s renal tubular, metabolic and kidney stone disorders.

Professor Helen Cross is The Prince of Wales’s Chair of Childhood Epilepsy and Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Neurology at ICH, GOSH, and Young Epilepsy, Lingfield, and NIHR Senior Investigator. Her research focusses on improving outcomes for children with early onset epilepsy.  

Dr Karin Straathof is a Wellcome Trust Intermediate Clinical Scientist at ICH and GOSH, and NIHR Clinical Academic Lecturer in Paediatric Oncology. Her research aims to develop T-cell based immunotherapy approaches for childhood cancer. 

Dr Haiyan Zhou is a principal investigator and lecturer in genetics and genomic medicine and non-clinical lead for the NIHR GOSH BRC Junior Faculty. Her research focuses on RNA-targeted therapy in genetic conditions and translational biomedical research in muscular dystrophies.