About the Department
The Department of Paediatrics is an internationally recognised centre for research in child health and development.
Research within the Department is focused on the areas of Developmental Neurobiology, Diabetes, Endocrine, Gastroenterology, Neonatal and Paediatric Intensive Care, and the determinants of birth size and infant growth. It also has a very active teaching programme for medical students, and supports postgraduate research degrees at MD and PhD level.
The Department of Paediatrics is part of the School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge and is embedded within the Addenbrooke’s Hospital on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. The Department comprises about sixty staff, with senior research staff working on multi-centre research projects and collaborating actively with other University departments, clinical partners in the NHS, other national and international academic institutions, the UK Government and various policy groups, as well as service users and carers.
Foreword from Head of Department
Paediatrics is entering an exciting phase where we can have an even greater impact on the overall healthcare system. We will develop and implement new paradigms of preventive medicine that are tailored to the individual to provide more effective advice, preventing or delaying onset of acute and chronic disease. In the coming decade, we will investigate the utility of precision medicine approaches that will take into account the unique genomic susceptibilities of individuals to personalize medical paradigms of care. Such approaches must also account for the complexity of the environment, including the social circumstances in the home, access to high quality medical care.
Efforts in Cambridge will be augmented with the building of a new regional Children’s Hospital sited on Addenbrookes campus, which could open as early at 2023. Our vision is to embed and co-locate research investigators with patients and clinicians to promote multidisciplinary thinking across the usual silos.
Our ability to understand the root causes of disease will rely on maintaining a strong cadre of paediatric researchers that are skilled in mechanistic analysis of disease origins and injury against the dynamic backdrop of human development. It is more than ever essential for paediatric programs in academic centres to produce first class researchers able to help us realize the goals of progress and have impact in the field. We can encourage further activities in the training realm and also career development by establishing robust lines of research within the department in areas such as brain and behaviour, paediatric cancer, diabetes and obesity, inflammation, immunity and allergy, and social, urban and global medicine.
David H Rowitch, MD, ScD, FMedSci
Professor and Head of Paediatrics
Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator
University of Cambridge
