Dr Vimal Vasu

Dr Vasu has been a consultant neonatologist at the William Harvey Hospital, Ashford, Kent for 16 years and over this time has held leadership positions as Trust clinical neonatal lead, Neonatal guideline lead, Clinical research Network Paediatric lead and Trust simulation training lead. He completed his MD (Res) degree at Imperial College in 2011 and a Masters in Healthcare Law and Ethics in 2017. 

He has and continues to be a principal investigator on a number of NIHR portfolio research trials. He has been a member on British Association working groups regarding enhancing shared decision making in perinatal care (2019) and Consultant working patterns (2023). He is currently an honorary academic the University and has interests in global health, telomere biology, communication and nutrition. 

Global child health work includes support of an NGO in Haiti (Helping The World's Most Vulnerable | Hope Health Action) and through previous work with the RCPCH Global Links program in Rwanda and Myanmar. His work in Haiti has involved training and implementation projects around neonatal thermoregulation, transcutaneous bilirubinometry to detect and treat neonatal jaundice, the use of pulse oximetry for detection of deteriorating neonatal patients, the design and implementation of a neonatal minimum data set, participation in multidisciplinary mortality reviews, assistance with developing plans for a new neonatal unit and advice on equipment purchase and inventory systems. 

He was an expert neonatal advisor to the Ockenden review from February 2019 to February 2020. More recently, he completed the Cardiff University Bond Solon Accreditation Civil Expert certificate. He represents the UK neonatal collaborative on the Neonatal Data Analysis Unit Steering group. He has co-directed the Annual Neonatal Update Conference (Neonatal Update 2025 | Faculty of Medicine | Imperial College London) in London since 2016 and is a member of the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit scientific committee.  

 ORCID: Loop | Vimal Vasu

Selected Publications/Abstracts/Textbook chapters

1. Congenital mycoplasma pneumoniae. A rare cause of preterm respiratory failure. Bansal J, Glass S, Meader E, Aboualfa K, Vasu V. British Association of Perinatal Medicine Spring Conference 2025 (Poster) 
2. Vlad M, Saha P, Colledge J, Vasu V. 8342 A service evaluation of neonatal magnetic resonance (MR) imaging in a tertiary neonatal unit: assessing service load and optimizing scan quality. Archives of Disease in Childhood 2025;110:A126.
3. Clarke P, Embleton ND, Fewtrell M, Harrington DJ, Kelly AM, Moris N, Patto A, Ponnusamy V, Vasu V, Shearer MJ. Vitamin K: missed at peril-the case for extra supplementation to prevent deficiency in breastfed preterm infants. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2024 Oct 18;109(6):679-680. 
4. Vasu V, Mulla S, Pandya A, Card D, Shearer MJ, Clarke P. Late-onset vitamin K deficiency bleeding in an extremely preterm infant fed an exclusively human milk-based diet. J Thromb Haemost. 2024 Feb;22(2):466-469. doi: 10.1016/j.jtha.2023. 
5. Embleton ND, Sproat T, Uthaya S, Young GR, Garg S, Vasu V, Masi AC, Beck L, Modi N, Stewart CJ, Berrington JE. Effect of an Exclusive Human Milk Diet on the Gut Microbiome in Preterm Infants: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Mar 1;6(3):e231165. 
6. Uthaya S, Jeffries S, Andrzejewska I, Vasu V, Embleton ND, Modi N. Randomised controlled trial of human derived breast milk fortifier versus bovine milk fortifier on body composition in very preterm babies. Early Hum Dev. 2022 Aug;171:105619. 
7. Shared decision making: Translating guidance into practice. McGrath J, Vasu V, Sullivan C, on behalf of the BAPM Enhancing Shared Decision Making in Neonatal Care Working Group. Infant. 2021. Vol 17(4); 146-149 
8. Vasu V, Gale C. Understanding the impact of size at birth and prematurity on biological ageing: the utility and pitfalls of a life-course approach. Pediatr Res. 2021 Feb;89(3):411-412. 
9. Dubus M, Mun KS, Vasu V. 1549 Variation in referral of neonatal deaths to coronial services in the UK. Archives of Disease in Childhood 2021;106:A410-A411. 
10. Veeraraghavan N, Dubus M, Brown S, Vasu V.  1699 A descriptive analysis of Coronial prevention of future death reports relating to neonatal patients in England & Wales (2015–2020). Archives of Disease in Childhood 2021;106:A462. 
11.  Reynolds P, Bustani P, Darby C, Fernandez Alvarez JR, Fox G, Jones S, Robertson SJ, Vasu V, Roehr CC. Less-Invasive Surfactant Administration for Neonatal Respiratory Distress Syndrome: A Consensus Guideline. Neonatology. 2021;118(5):586-592.  
12. Dubus M, Ladhani S, Vasu V. Prophylactic Paracetamol After Meningococcal B Vaccination Reduces Postvaccination Fever and Septic Screens in Hospitalized Preterm Infants, The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal: January 2020 - Volume 39 - Issue 1 - p 78-80.
13. Johnson SM, Vasu V, Marseille C, Hill C, Janvier L, Toussaint P, Battersby C. Validation of transcutaneous bilirubinometry during phototherapy for detection and monitoring of neonatal jaundice in a low-income setting. Paediatr Int Child Health. 2019 Apr 11:1-5.  
14. Turner K, Lynch C, Rouse H, Vasu V, Griffin DK. Direct Single-Cell Analysis of Human Polar Bodies and Cleavage-Stage Embryos Reveals No Evidence of the Telomere Theory of Reproductive Ageing in Relation to Aneuploidy Generation. Cells. 2019 Feb 16;8(2). pii: E163.  
15. Turner KJ, Vasu V, Griffin DK. Telomere Biology and Human Phenotype. Cells.2019 Jan 19;8(1). pii: E73.