Meet Professor Mike Shields – from Queens University Belfast

Professor Mike Shields

In charge of the Belfast team on the clinical sampling side

 

Like the Chief Investigator (Andy Bush), I spend half my professional life looking after children with lung disease, and the other half researching the causes. My clinical interests include the day to day management of childhood asthma (ranging from moderate to severe) and I have recently started an initiative to reduce the burden of childhood asthma in N Ireland by way of improving the implementation of the basics of asthma care. In addition, I run the respiratory management of children with neuromuscular diseases service for N Ireland.

My research interests include the measurement and monitoring airways inflammation in childhood wheezing disorders. Our team developed a safe method to sample the lower airways in children with wheezing and this is being used in the Breathing Together project.