Faculty members

Jane Kirkby

Dr Jane Kirkby is a Highly Specialist Clinical Physiologist involved in clinical, academic and research activities. Much of her research has involved the standardisation of lung function assessments, the long term impact of lung disease in childhood and the early origins of adult lung disease.

1. Academic Education

2012: Completed PhD thesis entitled “Application and Interpretation of Paediatric Lung Function.” The thesis was supervised by Dr Sam Sonnappa and Prof. Janet Stocks at UCL. (Viva date: 25^th June 2012).

2007: Graduate Certificate in Paediatric Respiratory Science (University of Western Australia)

2. Employment

April 2014 to present: Highly Specialist Respiratory Physiologist: Managing the infant and children’s lung function laboratory at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust.

3. Research Experience

• EPICure Study: The 11 year respiratory follow up of children born extremely pre-term (MRC-funded).
• Asthma UK Initiative: An international collaboration of paediatric reference data.
• SAC study: The Sleep, Sickle Cell and Asthma cohort study. NHLBI funded international longitudinal study of children with Sickle cell disease.
• Wellcome Trust funded SLIC study (Size and Lung Function in Children). Investigated the relationship between body size and composition and lung growth in healthy children of all ethnicities.
• Wellcome Trust funded ChroSAM study: 7 year follow-up of Malawian children admitted with severe acute malnutrition..
• Involved in a number of collaborative initiatives including the Global Lung Function Initiative, the Health Survey for England, and the European Respiratory Society (ERS)
• I have provided training and quality control for lung function tests for a variety of international studies

4. Teaching and presentations

• Regularly lecture on MSc modules and ARTP (Association for Respiratory Technology and Physiology) lung function interpretation courses.
• Invited to lecture at the West Country Chest Society annual meeting, the Welsh Respiratory Physiology conference and the ARTP National Strategy Meeting.
• Set up several spirometry courses and teaching sessions within the hospital Trust and given external lectures to other hospitals (including video conference to India).