Alexander Horsley

Overview

Dr Horsley is an NIHR Clinician Scientist, University Senior Lecturer and Honorary Consultant at the Manchester Adult Cystic Fibrosis Centre, based at University Hospitals South Manchester NHS Foundation Trust (www.uhsm.nhs.uk/cysticfibrosis/Pages/home.aspx). He is involved in several aspects of CF research but has a special interest in lung clearance index as a measure of early airways disease (funded by the NIHR), and has also been involved in research in the role of airway mucins in the pathophysiology of CF.

Biography

Dr Horsley graduated with a first class degree and a scholarship from Cambridge University and with honours from Edinburgh University. He carried out his respiratory training in Leeds and Edinburgh and completed a PhD on lung physiology at Edinburgh University with the CF Gene Therapy Consortium. The main area of this research was the measurement of ventilation heterogeneity using inert gas multiple breath washouts to assess small airways disease. This involved adapting and validating a novel gas analyzer (InnocorTM) to produce a system that was robust and simple enough to use in multi-centre trials. This research has established the utility and reproducibility of lung clearance index measurements in adults, how these measurements change with antibiotic treatment of an exacerbation and how they correlate with other assessments of lung function and structure.  The apparatus has now been used to assess ventilation heterogeneity in over 200 patients and control subjects, across three sites, as part of the CF Gene Therapy Consortium trials. Work from this PhD was awarded the Methven prize by the Scottish Thoracic Society and was also awarded a Croom Lecture Prize by the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh).

The next phase of this research is to produce and run an LCI system suitable for routine clinical use. This work was the subject of a prestigious NIHR Clinician Scientist award to Dr Horsley in 2013.