Research profile: Dr Rob Niven

Dr Rob Niven is Senior Lecturer (Consultant) in Respiratory Medicine at North West Lung Centre, Wythenshawe Hospital.Dr Rob Niven is Senior Lecturer (Consultant) in Respiratory Medicine at North West Lung Centre, Wythenshawe Hospital.

Asthma UK is supporting his current research into the causes of asthma, occupational lung diseases and the management of severe asthma.

Why is asthma so interesting as a research issue?

My personal interest was fired because my wife and two children have asthma and my son had severe allergies when I was a junior doctor.

It is the commonest chronic disease of childhood and has undergone a real change in the number of people with asthma and to date we are not much closer to knowing why.

Finally, some people suffer terribly from the disease and their lives can be destroyed by it. For most it is a mild nuisance. Managing the former group is a real personal challenge as we try to make their lives better, in terms of it being more normal and more fulfilling, despite the fact they have this bad disease.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

Easy…people!

How does Asthma UK help your research?

Asthma UK is a research funding body that listens to people with asthma as well as trying to improve our understanding of the causes and management of asthma. As a result its research focus is sensible and patient orientated. It funds projects of importance that would be difficult to get support for from other sources.

What do you hope to achieve as a result of your research?

My current Asthma UK funded projects, firstly aim to determine if certain simple factors in childhood, and particularly vaccination strategies, influence the chance of a child developing asthma and allergy.

Secondly, we are studying patient perceptions of asthma and situations that they believe to be of risk to them. This work is called a qualitative study and is really trying to find out what the patients think and see if it is different from the beliefs of the medical carers.


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