New service opens for adult patients with developmental lung abnormalities

Dr Matthew Hind has started a new service at the Brompton Hospital to focus on adult patients with developmental lung abnormalities

The Lung Development and Disease research group within the NHLI is pleased to announce the opening of its new service.  Closely linking our research strengths with patient health, Dr Matthew Hind has recently established a new service at the Brompton Hospital for adult patients with developmental lung abnormalities. The purpose of the Adult Developmental Lung Disorders Service is to understand the history (time-course) of each developmental abnormality with a view to providing tailored interventions to improve patient health. Adult patients with developmental lung abnormalities are frequently unable to find specialist clinical care once they turn eighteen as they no longer fall under the care of a paediatrician. Many lung defects are caused by a problem with development, frequently a gene mutation, patients therefore often have additional symptoms or issues affecting other parts of the body.  A holistic understanding of developmental defects is therefore essential to determine the most appropriate intervention.

Dr Hind is a Consultant Physician at the Royal Brompton Hospital, Honorary Senior Lecturer at the National Heart and Lung Institute of Imperial College and Honorary Research Fellow at The MRC Centre for Developmental Neurobiology at King's College London.  At NHLI Dr Hind’s research group are interested in understanding the signals that control lung development and regeneration. Matthew believes the cellular and molecular cues which control development may be used to induce lung regenerative programmes conserved across species. He has used derivatives of vitamin A including retinoic acid, identified as essential for regeneration in a wide variety of animals and organ systems from limbs in axolotls, hearts in zebrafish, to lungs of mouse and rat, to study alveolar regeneration in human lung models of increasing complexity including primary cells, lung slices and ex vivo lung perfusion models of lung injury. Within the Lung failure group he has established a developmental lung disease clinic at Royal Brompton Hospital.