Centre for Interventional Paediatric Psychopharmacology Research Team (CIPPRT)

The CIPPRT is led by Professor Paramala Santosh and the team’s main research focus is on translational research, exploring new ways to improve patient care, psychopharmacology, clinical trials in Rett syndrome, autonomic dysregulation in patient populations, and personalised medicine.

The team specifically investigates the role of emotional behavioural autonomic dysregulation (EBAD) in treatment resistance and conducts clinical trials. The CIPPRT team conducted the first clinical trial in Rett syndrome in the UK and is currently involved in other clinical trials in Rett syndrome. Professor Santosh and the team have developed a set of new clinical outcome measures for Rett syndrome and regularly use sensor-based technology to identify clinical biomarkers in rare diseases to help improve the patient care pathway.

We work together with the CIPP clinic at the Michael Rutter Centre at the Maudsley Hospital (part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust), which offers highly specialist pharmacological and psychological assessment and treatment for children with a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders, in the context of complex neurodevelopmental disorders, genetic or neurodegenerative disorders, acquired brain injury, psychotropic-induced side-effects and children experiencing specific medical conditions and terminal illnesses.

The two teams work closely together on both research and clinical duties, continuing the long-standing collaboration between the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s and the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

CIPP Rett Centre

The Centre for Interventional Paediatric Psychopharmacology (CIPP) Rett Centre was established in 2019 by Professor Santosh at the Maudsley Hospital, London and King’s College London. Funded predominantly by parent-based organization Reverse Rett, the CIPP Rett Centre is the world’s first centre for personalised medicine in Rett Syndrome that focuses on developing digital health strategies to monitor and manage patients whilst conducting translational research using the HealthTracker^TM platform, providing holistic specialist care, and conducting clinical trials. The Centre provides access to clinical trials and prepares for the first gene therapy trial to hopefully start in a few years.

At its core, the CIPP Rett Centre focuses on delivering fully holistic, personalised care for those Rett patients who are deemed clinically the most at risk. These include complex cases, where patients have disorders across multiple systems that require careful holistic management, and where patients’ underlying Rett Syndrome causes them not to respond to traditional treatments for their symptoms. This multi-modal aspect of the care pathway allows optimisation of patient-centred care and improvement in clinical outcomes.