Professor Sailesh Kotecha is Head/Professor of Child Health at Cardiff University, UK. His interests lie in delineating and treating the processes that lead to the development of chronic lung disease of prematurity (CLD).

His group has conducted the AZTEC randomised control trial to assess if azithromycin decreases rates of CLD in 796 preterm born infants and are now recruiting 542 preterm born infants to the BALLOON trial assessing if enhancing trained immunity can decrease rates of lower respiratory tract infections in discharged preterm-born infants. His group are also linking these studies to longer-term outcomes using national cohorts including ALSPAC, MCS and Biobank as well as their own cohorts of RANOPs and RHiNO developing the concept of prematurity-associated lung disease or PLD in child/adulthood following preterm birth identifying different phenotypes.