Dr Sophia Varadkar
Overview
Dr Sophia Varadkar is a Consultant Paediatric Neurologist and Deputy Medical Director at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, and Honorary Associate Professor at University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London, UK. She is also Co-Medical Director of the North Thames Genomic Medicine Service, UK.
Sophia completed her undergraduate degree at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and her postgraduate medical training in Dublin and London. Her clinical work focuses on complex epilepsy, the Children’s Epilepsy Surgery Service, Vagus Nerve Stimulation Therapy and MR-guided Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy.
Her clinical research training and PhD were in GOSH UCL Institute of Child Health. Since then she has been site priniciple investigator and co-investigator on a number of clinical studies and is co-applicant on an NIHR Programme Grant: Transforming the mental health treatment of young people with epilepsy.
Currently Sophia sits on the NHS England Paediatric Neuroscience Clinical Reference Group and the NHS Genomics Ethics, Equity and Legal Advisory Group. She is Chair of the British Paediatric Neurology Association Paediatric Epilepsy Training Programme Steering Committee. Previously she has been a Council Member of the International League Against Epilepsy British Branch.
Credentials
- Complex epilepsy
- Epilepsy surgery assessment
- Vagus Nerve Stimulation therapy
- Rasmussen syndrome
- Epilepsy surgery
- Metabolic causes of childhood epilepsy
Training:
• BA University of Dublin
• MB BCh University of Dublin
• BAO University of Dublin
• DCH University of Dublin
• MRCPI (Paeds)
• MSc (Clin Paed) from University College London
• PhD in Neurosciences from University College London
Membership:
• Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health
• Royal College of Physicians Ireland
• British Paediatric Neurology Association
• International League Against Epilepsy
• American Epilepsy Society
• European Task Force for Epilepsy Surgery
• British Mass Spectrometry Society
• Medical Defence Union
• British Medical Association
Dr Varadkar’s current research interests are in complex epilepsy, epilepsy surgery, Rasmussen syndrome, and metabolic causes of childhood epilepsy. She is an enthusiastic teacher and is a regular faculty member of various national and international training programmes, including the British Paediatric Neurology Association Paediatric Epilepsy Training (PET) courses, for which she is chair of the PET steering committee.
Dr Varadkar was the principle investigator in the following research projects:
- ALX-MCD-502 - A natural history study of molybdenum cofactor and isolated sulfite oxidase deficiencies (CCRN 2326), 2014
- A randomised controlled trial to compare seizure remission outcome following resective surgery with or without prior treatment with ketogenic diet in children with epilepsy the result of Focal Cortical Dysplasia type II - EDIBLE - (Evaluating Dietary Intervention Before surgical treatment for Epilepsy), 2015
- A post market, long term, prospective, observational, multi-site outcome study to follow the clinical course and seizure reduction of patients with refractory seizures who are being treated with adjunctive VNS Therapy, 2015
- A Phase 2/3, Multicenter, Multinational, Open-Label Study to Evaluate the Efficacy and Safety of ALXN1101 in Neonates with Molybdenum Cofactor Deficiency (MoCD) Type A. Project ALXN1101-MCD-202, 2017
News & Publications
Dr Varadkar has written and contributed to numerous publications including:
Andrew M. Faramand, Nicola Barnes, Sue Harrison,Roxanna Gunny,Tom Jacques,Zubair M. Tahir, Sophia M. Varadkar, Helen J. Cross, William Harkness, Martin M. Tisdall. Seizure and cognitive outcomes after resection of glioneuronal tumors in children. Epilespia Accepted: 29 October 2017
David Graham, Deepak Gill, Russell C Dale, Martin M Tisdall, Corpus Callosotomy Outcomes Study Group. Seizure outcome after corpus callosotomy in a large paediatric Series. DMCN 2017 in press
Emma S. Reid, Apostolos Papandreou, Suzanne Drury, Christopher Boustred, Wyatt W. Yue, Yehani Wedatilake, Clare Beesley, Thomas S. Jacques, Glenn Anderson, Lara Abulhoul, Alex Broomfield, Maureen Cleary, Stephanie Grunewald, Sophia M. Varadkar, Nick Lench, Shamima Rahman, Paul Gissen, Peter T. Clayton and Philippa B. Mills Advantages and pitfalls of an extended gene panel for investigating complex neurometabolic phenotypes. Brain 2016
Orosz, I., McCormick, D., Zamponi, N., Varadkar, S., Feucht, M., Parain, D., Griens, R., Vallée, L., Boon, P., Rittey, C., Jayewardene, A.K., Bunker, M., Arzimanoglou, A., Lagae, L., 2014. Vagus Nerve Stimulation for Drug Resistant Epilepsy: A European Long-Term Study Up To 24 Months in 347 Children. Epilepsia. 55(10 pp. 1576-84.
Papandreou, A., Tisdall, M.M., Chong, W.K., Cross, J.H., Harkness, W.F., Varadkar, S.M., 2014. COL4A1 mutations should not be a contraindication for epilepsy surgery. Childs Nerv Syst. 30(8) pp. 1467-9.
Mills, P.B., Camuzeaux, S.S., Footitt, E.J., Mills, K.A., Gissen, P., Fisher, L., Das, K.B., Varadkar, S.M.,Zuberi, S., McWilliam R, Stödberg T, Plecko B, Baumgartner, M.R., Maier, O., Calvert, S., Riney, K., Wolf, N.I., Livingston, J.H., Bala, P., Morel, C.F., Feillet, F., Raimondi, F., Del Giudice, E., Chong, W.K., Pitt, M., Clayton, P.T., 2014. Epilepsy due to PNPO mutations: genotype, environment and treatment affect presentation and outcome. Brain. 137 pp. 1350-60.
Varadkar, S., Bien, C.G., Kruse, C.A., Jensen, F.E., Bauer, J., Pardo, C.A., Vincent, A., Mathern, G.W., Cross, J.H., 2014. Rasmussen’s encephalitis: clinical features, pathobiology,and treatment advances. Lancet Neurol13 pp. 195–205.
Rahman, S., Footitt, E.J., Varadkar, S., Clayton, P.T., 2013. Inborn errors of metabolism causing epilepsy. Dev Med Child Neurol. 55(1) pp. 23-36.
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