Join us to celebrate a special milestone for our new professors and hear about their inspiring career journeys. Doors for this event will open at 16.45, with the lectures to commence at 17.00. A drinks reception will be held immediately after the lecture at 18:00.

Professor Ming Lim

Treating childhood neuroinflammation: What have we learned thus far?

Abstract

In the last decade, there has been significant advances in the recognition of childhood neuro-inflammatory disorders. Hugely collaborative multi-centre efforts have resulted in robust clinical characterisation and mapping of disease course. Across many of these conditions, particularly autoimmune encephalitides, there is a convergence of evidence that early recognition and initiation of treatment are associated with better outcome. Due to a paucity of controlled trials, real-world data on immunotherapeutic responsivity and meta-analysis of individual patient data are providing the important evidence base to begin to develop management consensus for these complex conditions. Increasing availability of newer biologics utilised in an induction-maintenance treatment paradigm is beginning to reveal benefits in disease control but importantly also incurring longer-term benefits on disability accrual. Interrogating neurobiological factors may also prove beneficial in improving patient outcome.

Biography

Ming Lim undertook his undergraduate medical training at the University Nottingham, UK. Following completing his paediatric neurology training in South London, he began his doctoral research with the award of a Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Research Training Fellowship, where he studied the neuroimmune response in childhood neurodegenerative disorders. He is now Consultant Paediatric Neurologist at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital; and Professor of Paediatric Neurology in King’s College London. His work has contributed to the important characterisation and understanding of numerous childhood neuroinflammatory disorders. The Evelina brain and spine inflammation service that he built has a successful research portfolio and is now acknowledged as a national and international centre of excellence, leading efforts to optimise the outcome of childhood neuroinflammatory disorders.  

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Professor Manish Sinha

Under pressure: the health of the heart and kidneys in the young! 

Abstract

In my talk, I will describe the importance of improving the management of hypertension in children and adolescents and its relevance in avoiding future cardiovascular disease. Research in children and young people offers an opportunity to understand the earliest origins of chronic disease and to treat them when it is likely to be of most benefit.

The optimal ‘window’ for interventions in the life course of an individual is arguably much earlier than traditionally considered. This is of relevance for the young but also to adults, in whom the management of cardiovascular diseases remains difficult and suboptimal. I will exemplify these issues with my research in hypertension and its effect on the cardiovascular system in children and young people with and without kidney disease.

Biography

Professor Manish Sinha is a Consultant Paediatric Nephrologist at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Guy’s & St Thomas’s Foundation Hospitals NHS Trust. Manish’s research interests include hypertension, cardiovascular disease development in childhood and its progression into young adulthood both in those with and without kidney diseases. In 2016 he obtained a PhD titled ‘Relation of pre-clinical arterial disease to blood pressure in children with chronic kidney disease’ from Kings College London.

Manish was the chief investigator for the UK-wide multicentre HOT-KID clinical trial that recently reported how lowering blood pressure in children with chronic kidney disease could prevent adverse cardiac remodelling. His current work focuses on understanding the haemodynamics of hypertension and evaluating its impact on the heart and large arteries. Ongoing research studies use cardiac MRI, advanced echocardiography techniques and non-invasive tools to study arterial stiffening and ventricular-vascular coupling and to identify pre-clinical cardiac and vascular changes in children and young people with hypertension, chronic kidney disease, dialysis and polycystic kidney disease.