The Respiratory Theme within IPS is a multidisciplinary team of synthetic chemists, pharmacologists, and drug delivery experts with research interest spanning asthma, COPD, IPF, bronchiectasis, lung infections and pneumonia, acute lung injury and ARDS. Our range of research expertise allows for the identification and appraisal of druggable targets of novel chemical entities created in-house, efficacy measurements using in vitro, in vivo, and human derived tissue. We have state of the art equipment ranging from precision-cut lung slices and imaging, lung function recording capacity in most laboratory animal species, precise inhalation technologies, and access to state of the art imaging and microscopy facilities.

Respiratory Theme members integrate with the King's Centre for Lung Health. This ensures research in respiratory diseases at KCL is committed to a bench to bedside approach, joining basic research with translational medicine.

Some successes of the theme include:

1. The approval by the FDA of Ensifentrine in 2024, a novel, first in class PDE3/4 inhibitor exhibiting bifunctional bronchodilator and anti-inflammatory actions in a single molecule as an inhaled treatment for patients with COPD. The seminal preclinical and early clinical work on the discovery and development of this drug was carried in our research group
2. During the COVID-19 pandemic, based on research carried out in the Unit investigating the non anti-coagulant activities of heparin we discovered that unfractionated heparin was able to inhibit the ability of the SARS-CoV2 virus to infect epithelial cells and suggested the use of inhaled heparin as a possible treatment to prevent the development of the complications of COVID-19 which led to a successful meta trial across six countries showing that this treatment reduced the need for ventilation and halved mortality.
3. Current projects that are being developed in-house and have patents applied for that include novel systemically acting anti-inflammatory drugs, novel inhalable drugs with bronchodilator and anti-inflammatory properties, and technologies that allow non-invasive continuous measurement and assessment of lung health.