King's College London

The PIs working in this research grouping are, Professor Andrew Shennan, Professor Kypros Nicolaides, Professor Robyn North, Professor Lucilla Poston, Dr Lucy Chappell and Mrs Annette Briley.

The group at King's College Hospital are currently examining the potential for screening for pre-eclampsia at 12 weeks of gestation with maternal history, maternal blood pressure, uterine artery Dopplers, and biochemical markers (Funding; Fetal Medicine Foundation). Funding has been obtained to evaluate pre-eclampsia monitoring in the developing world to facilitate referral; an area where simple interventions are likely to impact on maternal mortality.

The focus of research at the GSTFT (MFRU) site is complementary, to develop the use of biological fluids and biomarkers for identification of women at high risk of developing pre-eclampsia using a proteomics based strategy. A larger study is underway investigating prediction and diagnosis of adverse pregnancy outcomes in women with chronic hypertension (NIHR Doctoral Fellowship, Dr K Bramham). Collaborations have been established with the multinational SCOPE consortium and with the Swedish Birth Registry to utilise existing databases in the exploration of clinical risk prediction for adverse pregnancy outcome including pre-eclampsia and small for gestational age infants. This will be integrated with biomarkers, both known candidates and novel discoveries with the aim of development a predictive test for application in clinical practice.