SAGLANI, SEJAL

Sejal Saglani leads the Paediatric Severe Asthma Group within the Section of Inflammation, Repair and Development and is an Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine, Royal Brompton Hospital.She completed her undergraduate degree in medicine at the University of Leicester and undertook her clinical specialist training in Respiratory Paediatrics in the Thames Region. She undertook her postgraduate degree, funded by Asthma UK, at the NHLI investigating the pathology of severe infant and preschool wheeze and received the NHLI Thesis prize for best thesis.Subsequent to obtaining her clinical specialist training, Prof Saglani obtained a British Lung Foundation Research Fellowship to develop a neonatal mouse model of allergic airways disease, following which she was awarded a Wellcome Intermediate Clinical Fellowship to investigate the mechanisms mediating the onset of preschool wheeze and asthma in early life. She has since been awarded an MRC New Investigator Award, and currently has an NIHR Career Development Fellowship. She was awarded the European Respiratory Society Young Investigator Award for Paediatric Research in 2009, and The European Respiratory Society Romain Pauwels Award for Excellence in Translational Respiratory Research in 2015.Professor Saglani’s research is focused on investigating the mechanisms underpinning the onset of severe preschool wheeze, factors predicting progression to school-age asthma and identification of novel therapies for preschool wheeze and childhood severe asthma.She has established a translational research programme involving an integrated approach using airway samples from children coupled with an age-appropriate neonatal mouse model, and direct application and clinical translation of her findings in interventional clinical trials.