A new centre of excellence focused on lung health has launched with the aim of discovering new treatments, diagnoses and drugs.
The King’s Centre for Lung Health is led by clinicians from Royal Brompton and Harefield, Guy’s and St Thomas and King’s College Hospital; academics from King’s College and Imperial College; and leading figures from King’s Health Partners.
With the UK seeing the “worst death rate for lung disease anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere”, the centre is set to study some of the largest disease cohorts in the UK to address the challenge. It will deliver respiratory research with NHS partners and others.
“This is a landmark day for us and our clinical academic collaboration,” said Lawrence Tallon, Deputy CEO at Guy’s and Thomas. “Innovation is absolutely key for the long term future of the healthcare system in this country and it is places like this that have the opportunity to innovate at scale for the maximum benefit of patients.”
Mona Bafadhel, Director at the Centre and Chair of Respiratory Medicine at King’s, said that there are ten health crises every minute caused by lung disease in the UK. “We must not take our lungs for granted,” she said. “We need a public awareness campaign on what lung health really means.”
Chief Executive of the Heart, Lung and Critical Care Clinical Group at Guy’s and St Thomas’, Richard Grocott-Mason, commented: “This bold new Centre will expand our knowledge of the lungs and lung health very significantly and is therefore a really important and exciting development for medicine, for the NHS and its partners, and for our clinical group.”
