Meet our Principal Investigator: 

Dr Dominic Smith - I have worked as a consultant paediatrician in York since 2002 having trained in Nottingham, London, Oxford and Yorkshire. My clinical interests are general paediatrics, paediatric diabetes and paediatric rheumatology. I also have an interest in teaching, acting as curriculum advisor for the child health curriculum for HYMS. My research activity has been to act as local principal investigator on a number of clinical studies including TrialNet and ADDRESS studies of autoimmunity and risk of type 1 diabetes, JUMP structured education in diabetes, IgNITE immunoglobulin in encephalitis. 

 As a result of my general paediatric work, I was particularly interested to see progress in the field of immunisation against respiratory syncytial virus RSV which is the major cause of hospital admission in infants in the UK and a major cause of illness and mortality around the world. In 2023 we completed the Harmonie randomised controlled trial of a new RSV immunisation as a participating centre at York. The study was really well supported by local families and York was the highest recruiting centre in the region. The study showed clear benefit and safety of immunisation with over 80% reduction in hospital admissions. 

 I have acted as lead for research in women and children's health over the last 2 years and we have grown the research activity in these areas in several ways including collaboration with the local universities and as a local site for NIHR studies. I have acted as principal investigator for the BaBi study since start-up in York & Scarborough to the point of opening to recruit participants.