Evelina London Children's Hospital

Vasantha Gowda is a Consultant Paediatric Neurologist at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital. She completed her higher specialist training in Paediatric Neurology from the Oxford Deanery and specialized further in Neuromuscular Disorders at the Dubowitz Neuromuscular Centre at the Great Ormond Street Hospital.

She undertakes full time clinical practice in Paediatric Neurology and runs specialist Paediatric Neuromuscular as well as General Paediatric Neurology clinics at Evelina London Children’s Hospital and also supports peripatetic clinics in the South East Thames region.

She was awarded an MSc in Evidence Based Health Care from the University of Oxford in 2007. She is the Principal Investigator at the Evelina site for the Clinical Trial ‘Long Term Observational Study of Translarna Safety and Effectiveness in Usual Care’ (PTC124-GC-0250-DMD). She is also the Co-PI for NIHR Rare Disease (DMD) modifier study .  She leads the Nusinersen Service Delivery for children with Spinal Muscular Atrophy type 1 under the Expanded Access Program arranged with Biogen.

Heinz Jungbluth is Professor of Paediatric Neurology at King’s College and a Consultant Paediatric Neurologist at the Evelina Children’s Hospital, Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London. He runs specialist clinics for children and adolescents affected by neuromuscular and neurological disorders and has more than 20 years of clinical experience in the neuromuscular field. His main research interest is in neurogenetics, in particular the genetics of early-onset neuromuscular and neurodevelopmental disorders. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and has authored several chapters in key neurological and neuromuscular textbooks. He is a member of various editorial boards, as well as National and International Expert Consortia, concerned with improving the care and developing therapies for patients affected by neuromuscular disease.

Jennie is a Chartered and State-registered Physiotherapist with many years of experience in Paediatrics. She has worked for most of her career in Paediatric Neuromuscular Disorders, working at a number of specialist centres, including The Hammersmith Hospital with Professor Dubowitz, then Professor Muntoni. When working at Guys Hospital ,she was involved in both the Paediatric and Adult Neuromuscular clinics. For the last 11 years, she has been at The Evelina London Childrens Hospital. She also has experience as a Paediatric Community Physiotherapist, and is therefore very aware of the challenges that are met by therapists working in different environments.

She works as part of the MDT team at The Evelina London, carrying out standardised assessments, providing clinical management and advice to families and local physiotherapists. She also works closely with the orthopaedic and respiratory physiotherapy teams, and the orthotists.

Jennie was one of the developers of the NorthStar Ambulatory Assessment for DMD, which after publication, became widely recognised and adopted as the standardised assessment of choice for many research studies in DMD, both nationally and internationally, and is also an essential part of the Northstar national database. She is the physiotherapy representative on the National NorthStar Steering Committee.

Jennie has been involved in a number of research projects and publications -  the most recent being the national study on hydrotherapy in DMD, as the independent assessor of prescription suitability and compliance. She has set-up, and continued to run, the South East Physiotherapy Network for NMD. She is a member of APCP and the APCP Neuromuscular group, and was previously a Committee member.

Jennie is the lead for a small team of specialist physiotherapists in Neuromuscular Disorders at Evelina London.

Martin studied psychology at Cardiff University before completing an MSc in paediatric neuropsychology at UCL. He then joined the Children’s Neurosciences team in 2011, as an Assistant Psychologist with the Neurodevelopmental Team, working in research as well clinically.

In July 2016 he became the Children’s Neurosciences Department’s Clinical Trial Coordinator.

Clara graduated from King’s College London in 2012 and completed her rotations at North Middlesex Hospital. In October 2019, she joined the Neuromuscular Team at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital, as the Research Neuromuscular Physiotherapist funded by the DMD Hub. She supports the Neuromuscular Multidisciplinary clinics which take place weekly and takes part in the research trials.