Early Life Research
 

Image of Don Sharkey

Don Sharkey

Professor of Neonatal Medicine and Technologies, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences

Contact

  • workRoom Academic Child Health, East Block, E Floor University Hospital
    Queen's Medical Centre
    Nottingham
    NG7 2UH
    UK
  • work0115 823 0602
  • fax0115 823 0626

Biography

I am an academic neonatologist with a broad research portfolio keen on cross-discipline collaboration. My research focus is the development and integration of healthcare technologies for neonatal care. In particular, I am involved with medical device development in the fields of neonatal resuscitation, neonatal transport, neonatal monitoring and diagnostics, and artificial intelligence (AI). My goals are to enhance delivery of neonatal care to improve key outcomes including brain injury and bronchopulmonary dysplasia.

I work with parent groups/charities, funders and industry to develop and deliver neonatal studies. I'm the national Theme Lead for Neonatal Technologies at the NIHR Children and Young People MedTech Cooperative. I am the lead for neonatal transport research as part of the UK Neonatal Transport Group and created the UK Neonatal Transport Research Collaborative (UK-NTRC).

I'm passionate about neonatal research and support early career researchers across a number of disciplines including clinicians, allied-healthcare professionals, engineers, physical scientists and computer scientists. Currently I supervise:

Dr Tng Chang Kwok - Neonatal Clinical Fellow exploring AI application in the field of neonatal prediction and clinical trials.

Dr Aarti Mistry - Neonatal Clinical Fellow looking at new ways to improve neonatal transport improving safety and outcomes.

Dr Syed Taha, Neonatal Clinical Fellow developing newborn delivery technologies to advance the care of high-risk infants.

Mr Simon Stockley - PhD Engineering student exploring better ways to monitor infants including novel pulse oximetry approaches.

Miss Karina De Almeida Lins - PhD Chemistry student developing amazing new polymer coatings for neonatal devices to prevent biofilm production.

Dr Rozzie Simpson - Academic Clinical Fellow in paediatrics studying the science of newborn noise exposure and unique attenuation systems.

Expertise Summary

Neonatal clinical studies

Newborn resuscitation

Newborn transport

Medical device development

Application of artificial intelligence in neonatology

Teaching Summary

Module lead for Undergraduate Child Health 2010-2013

Research Summary

Neonatal Resuscitation and monitoring

Developing better ways of monitoring newborns in the delivery room.

Neonatal inter-hospital transport

Developing safer ways to transport neonatal patients at high risk of a poor outcomes. Focus on the stressful environment (noise, whole body vibration, temperature) and integrated data approaches. Understanding the impact of the transport pathway on outcomes through large scale database analyses.

Bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD)

Understanding the causes (for example the impact of respiratory viruses) and epidemiology of BPD. Developing AI approaches to prediction of BPD and subsequent targeted clinical trials.

Technology and medical device development

Advancing neonatal MedTech in key areas. Providing expert input into device development and signposting/collaboration linkage to ensure acceleration and translation of devices into neonatal care.

Selected Publications

Early Life Research Unit

School of Medicine
The University of Nottingham
E Floor, East Block, Queen's Medical Centre
Nottingham, NG7 2UH


telephone: +44 (0) 115 823 0611
email:childhealth@nottingham.ac.uk