Amanda Natanek

Biography

Amanda Natanek is a Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Molecular Medicine Section at the National Heart and Lung Institute of Imperial College London and a Consultant Respiratory Physician at Harefield Hospital. Her research interests are skeletal muscle fibre type plasticity in chronic cardio-pulmonary disease and her clinical interests are chronic ventilatory failure and domiciliary ventilation, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). Dr Natanek studied Medicine at Cambridge University (1993–96) and Oxford University (1996–99), obtaining First Class Honours in Medicine and in an intercalated BSc in Experimental Psychology. Dr Natanek trained as a junior doctor at Bart’s and the London NHS Trust and as a specialist registrar in Respiratory Medicine in the North-West Thames region. Dr Natanek’s PhD (awarded 2011), in Professor Mike Polkey’s lab at the Royal Brompton Hospital and Professor Annemie Schols’ lab in Maastricht, the Netherlands, was funded by a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellowship. This produced the largest single biobank biobank of skeletal muscle specimens (300) from patients with COPD and healthy age-matched controls and data on a number of pathways that are disturbed in the muscle of COPD patients that may underlie the reduced muscle strength and increased muscle fatigue in these patients that contribute to their poor exercise capacity. Following her PhD, she completed her clinical training and was awarded a Certificate of Completion of Specialist Training in Respiratory and General Internal Medicine in December 2011.  Dr Natanek was awarded a HEFCE Senior Clinical Lectureship and took up the post at Imperial College and the Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust in April 2012. She has strong research collaborations with Dr Paul Kemp (muscle wasting and microRNAs), Dr Gabriela da Silva Xavier (type 2 diabetes), Professors Cookson and Moffatt (genomics), Professor Wedzicha (COPD exacerbations) at Imperial College, Professor Simon Hughes at Kings College London (developmental biology, zebrafish models), Professor Emma Baker at St George's Hospital (glucose control in COPD), as well as internationally with Professor Schols (nutrition and cachexia, Maastricht) and Dr Esther Barreiro (muscle oxidative stress, Barcelona).

Research Interest

Respiratory Medicine