Skip to main content
Deb Pal

Professor Deb Pal MRCP, PhD

Professor of Paediatric Epilepsy

Research interests

  • Neuroscience

Contact details

Biography

The focus of my Epilepsy and Neurodevelopmental Disorders lab is stratified and precision medicine, which are global initiatives to personalise treatment based on genetic, personal and lifestyle factors. In stratified medicine, we are using deep phenotyping to distinguish prognostic groups in common epilepsies and as a tool for increasing the power of genome-wide association (GWAS) analysis. Endophenotypes are relevant across neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric disorders and can help us to identify common or distinct causes and mechanisms. We can then study the function of these genes with neurobiologist colleagues at the MRC Centre for Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Sleep disturbance is a serious but underappreciated comorbidity in childhood epilepsy and one that affects not just the child but the whole family as well. Having a child with epilepsy adds another dimension because both the child and parents often live in a state of fear and anxiety about what may happen in the night. We have designed a novel electronic behavioural intervention for sleep problems in epilepsy that is under evaluation in a national randomised controlled trial. If successful, we hope to translate the intervention into a simple app for parents and revolutionise how effective behavioural treatments can be delivered.

Please see my Research Staff Profile for more detail

Find out more about my research:

Key publications:

Key collaborators:

  • Professor Lisa Strug, University of Toronto
  • Professor Mark Richardson, King's College London
  • Dr Rikke Møller, Danish National Epilepsy Centre

 

Research

KERC Seminar Series image
King's Epilepsy Research Collective (KERC)

The King’s Epilepsy Research Collective (KERC) provides a platform for researchers from all of King’s faculties to meet and discuss research and to support collaborative activities.

News

Impulsivity-linked genes identified in epilepsy

International large-scale genetic screening identified SLCO5A1 and “synapse assembly” genes associated to elevated impulsivity in adolescent-onset epilepsy.

Decisions

£1.1 million NIHR/MRC node established to study mTOR pathway rare diseases

Professor Joseph Bateman, Professor Deb Pal and Dr Laura Mantoan-Ritter received the funding to establish the mTOR Pathway Diseases node as part of the new...

Bateman_MantoanRitter_Image

Young women with epilepsy at greater risk of stress induced seizures and drug resistance

New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London has established sex-specific factors that are...

Earwax sampling could measure stress hormone

Research

KERC Seminar Series image
King's Epilepsy Research Collective (KERC)

The King’s Epilepsy Research Collective (KERC) provides a platform for researchers from all of King’s faculties to meet and discuss research and to support collaborative activities.

News

Impulsivity-linked genes identified in epilepsy

International large-scale genetic screening identified SLCO5A1 and “synapse assembly” genes associated to elevated impulsivity in adolescent-onset epilepsy.

Decisions

£1.1 million NIHR/MRC node established to study mTOR pathway rare diseases

Professor Joseph Bateman, Professor Deb Pal and Dr Laura Mantoan-Ritter received the funding to establish the mTOR Pathway Diseases node as part of the new...

Bateman_MantoanRitter_Image

Young women with epilepsy at greater risk of stress induced seizures and drug resistance

New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London has established sex-specific factors that are...

Earwax sampling could measure stress hormone