Double win for early career respiratory researchers
Congratulations to Ethan Singer, a physiotherapist, and Zander Williams, a physiologist based at Royal Brompton Hospital, who have each been awarded a pre-doctoral Early Career Fellowship from Asthma + Lung UK and the British Thoracic Society.
This fellowship supports early-career clinicians and researchers to develop their skills, generate new ideas, and take the next step towards a PhD. The funding gives them protected time to focus on important clinical questions and begin developing strong research applications. This is the first time the fellowship has been awarded to staff at Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals.
Ethan’s project will focus on improving how the impact of airway clearance techniques (ACTs) is measured for people living with long-term lung conditions, such as bronchiectasis and cystic fibrosis. ACTs are a key part of daily treatment, helping patients clear mucus from their lungs, but there is currently no patient-centred way of measuring whether they are making a meaningful difference in everyday life.
Through his fellowship, Ethan will work closely with people living with these conditions to better understand what outcomes matter most to them and how they define successful treatment. This includes how treatments affect symptoms, effort, and overall quality of life.
He will also review existing questionnaires used in research and clinical practice to identify gaps in how the benefits, burden, and sustainability of ACTs are measured. This work will help lay the groundwork for developing a patient-centred questionnaire that captures the outcomes most important to people living with chronic lung conditions, supporting future research and clinical decision-making.
Zander’s research will focus on understanding breathlessness during physical activity, particularly in people with large airway collapse (LAC). This condition causes the main airways to narrow excessively during exhalation, leading to symptoms such as coughing, noisy breathing, and shortness of breath.
Current diagnostic tests often rely on artificial breathing conditions, such as forced expiration, that do not reflect what happens in everyday life when patients report their symptoms. Through his fellowship, Zander will build on earlier work developing a new test that allows clinicians to see how the airways behave during exercise. By studying patients with LAC using this approach, he aims to better understand how the condition affects people in real life and whether this method could improve diagnosis and assessment.
Both fellowships mark an important step in Ethan and Zander’s clinical academic careers, allowing them to develop their research skills further and shape projects that could improve patient care.
Speaking about the award, Ethan said:
"I am delighted to receive this funding from Asthma + Lung UK. This fellowship will allow me to work closely with patients to better understand what outcomes matter most to them when using airway clearance treatments.
“I hope this work will help improve how we measure treatment effectiveness, ultimately supporting more personalised care and better outcomes for people living with chronic lung conditions."
Zander added:
“I am incredibly honoured to have been awarded the Asthma + Lung UK pre-doctoral early career fellowship award. This is my first successful grant application and represents a huge milestone in my career.
“The fellowship will allow me to continue our work investigating large airway collapse and I'm hugely grateful to Asthma + Lung UK for supporting this work, and to Professor James Hull for his mentorship.”