Nick Hopkinson is a Clinical Senior Lecturer at Imperial College as well as an Honorary Consultant Chest Physician at The Royal Brompton Hospital. He qualified in Medicine at Cambridge and The London Hospital Medical College and went on to train in Respiratory and General Internal Medicine at St George’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals. He is clinical lead for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) at The Royal Brompton Hospital and runs a tertiary referral advanced COPD clinic with Professor Mike Polkey and Dr Matthew Hind where patients are assessed for novel treatments for their disease including endobronchial emphysema therapies. He has established a smoking cessation clinic within the trust and is responsible for developing pulmonary rehabilitation services. Service development work includes the development of a COPD discharge care bundle working with the NW London CLAHRC. 

His major research interest is the causes of exercise limitation and reduced physical activity in patients with COPD. His publications have addressed the influence of genetic polymorphisms, corticosteroid therapy and the role of acute exacerbations in skeletal muscle impairment in this condition. He has also published work on the impact of bronchoscopic lung volume reduction on dynamic hyperinflation in patients with COPD and on transcranial magnetic stimulation of the diaphragm motor cortex in health and disease. He is a work package lead for the EU/IMI PROactive project developing a patient reported outcome for physical activity in COPD.

His work has been funded by The Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, The European Union, The British Lung Foundation and The Moulton Foundation. He works closely with Professor Mike Polkey and together with Professor John Moxham at King’s College Hospital and Dr Nick Hart at St Thomas’ they make up the London Respiratory Muscle Group which has undertaken a considerable body of collaborative research. Other external collaborations are with Professor Hugh Montgomery at UCH and he has also worked with Iranian physicians to improve the care, in particular through pulmonary rehabilitation, of victims of mustard gas from the Iran Iraq war in the 1980’s. Techniques employed include invasive measurement of respiratory pressures, cardiopulmonary exercise testing and the use of magnetic nerve stimulation to obtain non-volitional measures of muscle function.

Within Imperial College he is involved in research with The Centre for Pervasive Sensing to develop more sophisticated integrated physiology and activity sensors to monitor patients in their home environment. 

He is a Fellow of The Royal College of Physicians and is on the Council of The British Thoracic Society where he serves on the Science and Research Committee. He is the editor of the BTS newsletter, a spokesperson on COPD for the British Lung Foundation and was a medical advisor for ‘The Smoke House’ TV programme produced by The BBC.

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