Wisia Wedzicha

Wisia Wedzicha is Professor of Respiratory Medicine, Head of the Respiratory Division at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College,  Clinical Consul at Imperial College and Honorary Consultant at Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals. She qualified from Somerville College, Oxford University and St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College. She was elected as Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) and is a fellow both of the American Thoracic Society (ATSF) and European Respiratory Society (FERS). She received the Helmholtz International Fellow Award in 2014.

Professor Wedzicha has a major interest in the causes, mechanisms, impact and prevention of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations; in the role of bacterial and viral infection in COPD exacerbations. She directs an active research group to study COPD exacerbations and has published extensively on these topic. She also directs the multi-centre British Early COPD Cohort (BEACON) designed to study the trajectory of the early stages of COPD.

Professor Wedzicha was Editor-in-Chief of Thorax from 2002 to 2010 and till March 2022 the Editor in Chief for the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. She was  the Lancet Ombudsman till 2014, Publications Director for the European Respiratory Society (ERS) and has also previously been ERS Guidelines Director. She is a member of the GOLD Scientific Committee.