Prof Rosalind Smyth CBE FMedSci Governor

Rosalind joined the Health Foundation as a Governor in March 2016. She is an academic paediatrician, who has worked in the north of England and in London.

A native of Northern Ireland, Rosalind graduated in medicine from Clare College, Cambridge and Westminster Medical School and trained in paediatrics in London, Cambridge and Liverpool. Until September 2012, she was Professor of Paediatric Medicine at the University of Liverpool and was Director of the NIHR Medicines for Children Research Network, which supported all clinical research with children in England from 2005–2012.

She was Director of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health from 2012-2022. In September 2022, she was appointed Vice Dean Research at UCL Faculty of Population Health Sciences. She is Honorary Consultant Respiratory Paediatrician at Great Ormond Street NHS Foundation Trust, where she was non-executive director, for seven years, from January 2013.

Rosalind’s research interests include respiratory diseases and respiratory virus infections in children. She is Vice President (Clinical) of the Academy of Medical Sciences and she chairs the MRC’s Training and Careers Group. She was awarded CBE in 2015 for services to the regulation of medicines for children.

Published work

• Herbert JA, Deng Y, Hardelid P, Robinson E, Ren L, Moulding D, Smyth RL*, Smith CM* (*Joint last authors). β2 integrin LFA1 mediates airway damage following neutrophil trans-epithelial migration during RSV infection. ERJ 2020 DOI: 10.1183/13993003.02216-2019
• Taylor-Robinson DC, Whitehead M, Diggle PJ, Smyth RL. The effect of social deprivation on clinical outcomes and the use of treatments in the UK cystic fibrosis population: a longitudinal study. Lancet Respiratory Medicine. 2013; 1(2) 121-128
• Everitt AR, Clare S, Pertel T, John SP, Wash RS, Smith SE, Chin CR, Feeley EM, Sims JS, Adams DJ, Wise HM, Kane L, Goulding DA, Digard P, Anttila V, Baillie JK, Walsh TS, Hume DA, Palotie A, Xue Y, Colonna V, Tyler-Smyth C, Dunning J, Gordon S, The GenISIS, The MOSAIC Investigators, Smyth RL, Openshaw P, Dougan G, Brass AL, Kellam P. IFITM3 restricts the morbidity and mortality associated with influenza. Nature 2012; 484: 519-523
• Halfhide CP, Flanagan BF, Brearey SP, Hunt JA, Fonceca AM, McNamara PS, Howarth D, Edwards S, Smyth RL. Respiratory Syncytial Virus binds and undergoes transcription in neutrophils in the blood and airways of infants with severe bronchiolitis. J. Infect Dis 2011; 204: 451-458
• Gladstone M, Lancaster GA, Umar E, Nyirenda M, Kayira E, van den Broek N, Smyth RL. The Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool (MDAT): A validated and reliable tool for assessment of child development in rural African settings. PLoS Med 2010; 7(5): e1000273
• McNamara PS, Flanagan BF, Baldwin LM, Newland P, Hart CA, Smyth RL. Interleukin-9 production in the lungs of infants with severe respiratory syncytial virus bronchiolitis. Lancet 2004; 363(9414): 1031 – 1037