In celebration of their new professorships, Helen Murphy and Martin Crook will be showcasing their work at the upcoming Inaugural Lecture.

Professor Helen Murphy will be presenting Diabetes in Pregnancy: A story of (mostly) sweet success and Professor Martin Crook will be presenting Biochemical Medicine: Chemicals in disease

 

Helen Murphy, Professor of Women’s Health, School of Life Course Sciences

Helen is a specialist in the care of pregnant women with diabetes, which affects an estimated one in twenty mothers in the UK. Although the prevalence of stillbirths has more than halved, one in two live born babies still have complications that are directly related to their mother’s condition.

People with diabetes are often unable to control their blood sugar level without medication and, even then, it can change rapidly. Helen’s research has shown that prolonged exposure to high blood glucose during pregnancy explains the persistently high rates of overweight babies, preterm births and intensive care admissions. These, however, can be reduced by using new technologies and treatments to minimise the time that pregnant women spend with blood sugar levels that are too high.

Helen is working to put this new-found understanding into practice, both as a researcher and a clinician. She led, for example, the development and testing of an artificial pancreas to administer insulin throughout pregnancy. In 2015 the first natural birth to a mother fitted with the device took place at Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust, where Helen treats patients as an honorary consultant physician. She does the same at Cambridge University NHS Foundation Trust and leads the East of England pre-pregnancy care projects. Helen is a founding member of the National Pregnancy in Diabetes audit and chairs the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Gestational Diabetes Diet Group.

Throughout her career, Helen has seen more and more mothers enter pregnancy overweight and obese with diets containing far too much sugar. Improving maternal diet and health is, therefore, key to continuing the successes her work has already achieved.

Martin Crook, Honorary Professor in Biochemical Medicine

Martin has been with King’s throughout his career. He was first a student, qualifying in Medicine at what was Guy's Hospital Medical School, and then worked there in a variety of medical house jobs and later as a chemical pathologist. Martin is now Consultant in Chemical Pathology and Metabolic Medicine at Guy’s & St Thomas’ and University Hospital Lewisham, London.

Chemical Pathology is the branch of medicine dealing with the biochemical basis of disease and the use of biochemical tests for screening, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment. Martin specialises in metabolic and nutritional diseases working in clinics, onwards and in the laboratory.

Clinical biochemistry laboratories are used to analyse body fluids across the NHS and the results they generate are essential for delivering the best possible patient care. The way these laboratories run, however, is changing quickly. They are becoming more automated and use specialised analytical equipment to manage an ever-increasing workload.

Martin’s work, both in and outside the laboratory, focuses on how various chemicals can be implicated in the symptoms of diseases and how these conditions can be clinically managed. He advises The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, is a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of both Ireland and the UK. He has authored eight medical textbooks and over 250 other publications.