
Awarded the James Spence Medal in 2023
Citation submitted in 2022
Professor Edwards is a consultant neonatologist at the Eveline London Children’s Hospital and Professor of Neonatal Medicine at King’s College London. He has a 40 year career in which he has made an enormous impact not just on the survival of babies, but on the quality of life of some of the sickest new-borns cared for in neonatal units around the UK and internationally.
Professor Edwards was the driving force behind the research and implementation of therapeutic hypothermia for neonates and this intervention is now used globally and has been found to double normal survival and dramatically decrease health care costs.
David has also pioneered the use of MRI scanning to image the smallest and sickest babies and pregnant women. His work has led to improved diagnosis and prognosis, to improve care for babies as well as introducing novel patient-orientated outcome measures for premature babies. His team has taken this work even further in the first and largest ever study looking at how the connections first form in the months and weeks leading up to birth, in his ground-breaking Human Connectome Project which will give us a greater understanding of conditions like autism and cerebral palsy.