ProfessorLuigi Camporota

Professor Camporota’s research focuses on the physiological basis and clinical application of respiratory and circulatory support in critically ill patients. His principal areas of  research are:

• Acute respiratory failure and ARDS: physiological and biological characterisation of acute respiratory failure, recognising that patients with the same clinical diagnosis may differ in lung mechanics, recruitability, respiratory drive and response to treatment.

• Personalised mechanical ventilation: use of respiratory physiology to select and adjust ventilatory support, with particular attention to lung-protective ventilation, airway pressure release ventilation, spontaneous breathing and patient–ventilator interaction.

• Respiratory monitoring and imaging: bedside assessment of lung mechanics, gas exchange and inspiratory effort, including the use of electrical impedance tomography to examine regional ventilation and lung behaviour.

• Cardiorespiratory interactions: investigation of how spontaneous breathing and mechanical ventilation affect cardiac function and the pulmonary circulation, including right ventricular function during respiratory failure and extracorporeal support.

• Extracorporeal life support: physiological and clinical research in veno-venous and veno-arterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, extracorporeal carbon dioxide removal, and the interaction between extracorporeal support and native lung or cardiac function.

• Awake extracorporeal support: which examines whether extracorporeal support can rest the injured lung while allowing selected patients to remain awake, breathe spontaneously and mobilise, thereby reducing exposure to invasive ventilation, deep sedation and immobility.

• Computational modelling and digital twins: development of patient-specific models that combine physiological measurements and clinical data to predict responses to mechanical ventilation, non-invasive respiratory support and extracorporeal support.

• Physiological sensing and medical technologies: evaluation of continuous physiological sensors, wearable monitoring systems and other technologies designed to support real-time assessment of cardiorespiratory function.

• Physiology-guided clinical trials: integration of detailed physiological measurements with multicentre studies to identify treatment effects in clinically relevant patient subgroups. Current programmes include the NIHR-funded RELEASE and ROMEO trials and a mechanistic study of near-apnoea ventilation during ECMO.