UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health Inaugural Symposium

You are warmly welcomed to attend the inaugural symposium of Professor Simon Eaton.

This is a hybrid event held in the Kennedy Lecture Theatre , UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health & online via Zoom.

Link to join via Zoom: will be received nearer the date following registration.

Programme:

3.30pm – 4.00pm Tea/coffee on the Balcony

4.00-5.00pm Professor Simon Eaton, Professor of Paediatric Surgery, Nutrition and Metabolism

Title: ‘I Walk the Line: Between Basic Science and Paediatric Surgery’

5.00-6.00pm Drinks reception in the Winter Garden

RSVP Reserve a place by registering via Eventbrite.

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Professor Simon Eaton

Professor of Paediatric Neuromuscular Disorders

'I Walk the Line: Between Basic Science and Paediatric Surgery’

Abstract

One might question the role of a basic scientist, with no medical or surgical training, in Paediatric Surgery, and then also question how Paediatric Surgery links to Nutrition and Metabolism. It is my aim in this lecture to explain how a basic scientist like myself has spent nearly half of my life in a paediatric surgery unit. My bachelor's degree was in Biology, so my knowledge of anatomy and dissection is based on worms, frogs, and plants, and the whole degree was very distant from clinical medicine. My PhD, although in Metabolic Biochemistry, was spent in a Department of Paediatrics, and my exposure to other projects persuaded me of the importance of Clinical Research. I then moved to London to do metabolic research at the Institute of Child Health, and then by chance the line I walked in research life swerved considerably towards Paediatric Surgery.

We often talk about translational medicine, which is usually the transfer of therapeutic or diagnostic innovations to the patient, but the effectiveness of this translational stage depends on other, more linguistic, aspects of translation. This can involve translation from surgeons and other clinicians to scientists about what a condition or its treatment actually involves, and then translation from scientists to surgeons about statistics, bench science, etc. Although I will (hopefully!) never end up operating on a child, I have learned to be a “translator” on the line between Basic Science and Paediatric Surgery, and other aspects of Paediatric Medicine.

But I didn’t forget about my PhD training in metabolism, and so have continued to run a research laboratory measuring lots of metabolites (many of them smelly) of nutritional importance.

Biography

Simon Eaton received his PhD in Biochemistry and Metabolism in 1993 from University of Newcastle. Following this, he moved to UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health in London to the Paediatric Surgery Unit and developed an interest in paediatric metabolism and nutrition in neonatal and paediatric critical illness. He also is involved in tissue engineering for paediatric surgical conditions, and in mechanisms of dietary therapies for epilepsy. He runs a research laboratory which analyses a variety of metabolites and samples using GCMS, HPLC and isotope ratio mass spectrometry, and also enjoys teaching research methods, nutrition and metabolism to BSc, MSc and PhD students.

In the Chair: Professor Helen Cross, Director and Professor of Child Health, UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.

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RSVP Reserve a place by registering via Eventbrite.

Host or Publisher UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health