Dr Chris Gale

Chris Gale is a Professor of Neonatal Medicine, and works clinically as an honorary consultant neonatologist at Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust. His research focuses on neonatal population health - improving neonatal care through large clinical trials, observational research and population-level surveillance. Chris leads two of the largest randomised controlled trial ever undertaken in preterm care, aiming to prevent necrotising enterocolitis: the neoGASTRIC trial, and the United Kingdom arm of the WHEAT International trial. He leads surveillance of perinatal brain injuries for the Department for Health and Social Care in England, and monitoring of babies affected by SARS-CoV-2 infection in the neonatal period. Chris has led observational research to improve feeding practices and nutrition of term and preterm babies. A central aspect of this work is meaningful parent and patient involvement in neonatal research, particularly in randomised controlled trials. Other research interests include better understanding how prematurity and other early life factors influence health throughout later life, and efficiently disseminating clinical research findings to ensure evidence based neonatal care. He studied Medicine at the University of Newcastle and undertook paediatric training in Sydney and London. He gained an MSc in Clinical Paediatrics at the UCL Institute of Child Health; his thesis examined neonatal and perinatal transfers of extremely preterm babies. His PhD at Imperial College London examined the influence of infant feeding on adiposity, hepatic lipid and metabolic phenotype. He has been supported by the Medical Research Council through a Clinician Scientist and Transition Support Fellowships and by the National Institute of Health Research as a Clinical Lecturer and a Clinical Trials Fellow.