Meet the team

The PCD Team includes

• Dr Jane Lucas
• Dr Graham Roberts
• Amanda Harris, Specialist Nurse for PCD
• Tracey Pond, Specialist Physiotherapist for PCD

Dr Jane Lucas 

Jane Lucas is a consultant respiratory and allergy paediatrician at Southampton General Hospital and Senior Lecturer in the University of Southampton Medical School. Dr Lucas graduated from Southampton School of Medicine in 1998. She completed her postgraduate clinical training in Paediatrics, specialising in Allergy and Respiratory medicine in 2002.

In 2005 she was awarded a PhD from the University of Southampton for her work investigating the characteristics of kiwifruit allergy. In addition to addressing the clinical features of this food allergy, the research focused on the characteristics of food proteins that render them allergenic, and questioned our current mechanisms for reporting allergens.

In 2006 Dr Lucas was appointed Director of the Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia Diagnostic Service in Southampton. In 2007 she was awarded a HEFCE Senior Lectureship. She has been an Honorary Consultant Respiratory and Allergy Consultant in Southampton University NHS Hospital Trust since 2006.

Dr Lucas's Allergy Research program focuses on:

1. the influence of maternal diet on T cell responses and allergic outcomes in infancy
2. the extent to which allergy in childhood might be influenced by environmental factors during pregnancy and early post-natal life
3. quality of life in children with allergies
4. factors that make proteins allergenic.

Dr Lucas's Respiratory Research program focuses on:

1. the epidemiology, pathophysiology and management of PCD
2. characterisation of nitric oxide synthesis and function in the ciliated epithelium
3. environmental influences during pregnancy and early postnatal life that effect lung development.

Dr Lucas teaches on the MSc Allergy Course on the MMAD1, Dietetics and Respiratory Modules. She is a member of the Curriculum Design, Exam and Assessment sub-committee for this course.

Dr Graham Roberts

Graham Roberts qualified in Medicine from the University of Oxford. He under took his paediatric training in Leeds and London. Dr Roberts completed his training in paediatric respiratory medicine at The London Hospital and the Royal Brompton Hospital. He took up an appointment of consultant paediatrician and clinical senior lecturer in Paediatric Allergy and Respiratory Medicine in 2003. In 2007 he was promoted to a Reader within the University of Southampton. Dr Roberts sees children and teenagers with allergy and respiratory problems.

Dr Roberts completed a four year clinical research fellowship in paediatric allergy and respiratory medicine at Imperial College School of Medicine at St Mary's under the supervision of Professor Gideon Lack. Graham Roberts was awarded a MSc in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He completed his doctoral thesis on the safety and efficacy of immunotherapy for childhood allergic asthma. His current research interests focus on the pathogenesis and natural history of childhood asthma and food allergy. He is also involved in the development of new strategies to improve the management of asthma. This involves studies in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight where he is Co-Director of the David Hide Asthma and Allergy Research Centre.