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Sepsis is common, often catastrophic and we don't have any specific treatments.  Management still only consists of treatment of infection and supportive measures, despite many abortive attempts at new therapeutics. Roughly 20-30% of patient with sepsis die.

Intriguingly, fever, the well known harbinger of infection, is strongly related to survival from sepsis. Why this is isn't clear.  Indeed, how the body even generates a fever isn't clear. Is survival related to microbial killing?  Is it all about mitochondria? Can it be harnessed to improve survival?  A small randomised controlled trial of heating patients with sepsis suggests it might.

The talk will delve into all these fascinating questions and probably come up with no answers, but lizards will be involved, so it will be interesting.

About Robert Tidswell

Rob is a consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at UCLH with some research time funded by the UCLH Charity. His research interests range from sepsis pathophysiology, particularly the role heat has to play, to the development of diagnostic and sensing technologies for the diagnosis of critical illness. 

He completed his PhD with Profs Mervyn Singer and Michael Duchen at Õ¬ÄÐÊÓƵ investigating thermogenic mechanisms in adipose tissue during sepsis, and investigating a novel therapeutic to combat cachexia seen in survivors of sepsis. Future projects aim to optimise diagnosis and management of critical illness and sepsis, for example by accelerating diagnosis of infection and ensuring adequate antimicrobial dosing. He's always open for a chat, so please do feel free to get in contact.