Prof Catherine Williamson Honorary consultant of obstetric medicine and professor of women's health

Background

Catherine Williamson graduated in medicine in 1990 and now is professor of women’s health at Imperial College London. She is also consultant in obstetric medicine at Queen Charlotte’s, St Thomas’ and King’s College Hospitals. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and is an Honorary Fellow of the RCOG. She is the Maternal Medicine Representative on the RCOG Genomics Committee and was Chair of the European and FIGO guideline committees for the guidelines on management of liver disorders in pregnancy.

Her research focuses on the maternal and fetal aetiology, outcomes and management of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy, gestational diabetes mellitus and severe hyperemesis gravidarum.

Aside from her maternal medicine work, professor Williamson is director of the Tommy’s National Research Centre for Preterm Birth Research in the UK and leads a national programme to investigate the genomic aspects of the aetiology of spontaneous preterm birth.

 

Expertise

Liver and endocrine of pregnancy

Research & publications

Professor Williamson is an internationally recognised clinical specialist in obstetric medicine with a specific interest in liver and endocrine disease in pregnancy. Since 2007, she has held senior academic roles at Imperial College London and King’s College London, delivering an excellent clinical service, undertaking internationally competitive research, providing high quality teaching and training, and developing innovative strategic initiatives, including the Women’s Health Research Centre at Imperial College London and Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) Strategies at King’s College London. She is the director of the Tommy’s National Centre for Preterm Birth Research, a collaboration between Imperial College, University College, King’s College, Queen Mary University London and Leeds University that includes the UK Preterm Birth Network, enabling involvement of collaborators throughout the UK.

Her publication record demonstrates a unique breadth of understanding in her research field that spans a variety of experimental approaches, ranging from molecular biology to experimental medicine studies in clinical trial participants. She has over 250 original research publications and has an H index of 90.

Selected publications from more than 200 peer-reviewed papers; H index:84) ORCID ID: 0000-0002-6226-7611

1. Schoonejans JM, Fan HM, Mitchell AL, Lövgren-Sandblom A, Sukumar N, Periyathambi N, Weldeselassie Y, Seed PT, Molinaro A, Marschall HU, Ponnusamy S, Williamson C. Serum Bile Acid Measurements in Women of European and South Asian ethnicity with or without Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: a cohort study. BJOG 2024; doi: 10.1111/1471-0528.17798. PMID: 38424005.
2. Chivers S, Ovadia C, Regan W, Zidere V, Vigneswaran T, Sharland G, Rosenthal E, Seed PT, Simpson J*, Williamson C*. Systematic review of long QT syndrome identified during fetal life. Heart Rhythm 2023; doi.org/10.1016/j.hrthm.2022.12.026. PMID: 36566891.
3. Williamson C, Nana M, Poon L, Kupcinskas L, Painter R, Taliani G, Heneghan M, Marschall HU, Beuers U. EASL Clinical Practice Guidelines on the management of liver diseases in pregnancy. J Hepatol 2023; S0168-8278(23)00181-2. PMID: 37394016; doi: 10.1016/j.jhep.2023.03.006.
4. Dixon PH, (16 co-authors), Gale D*, Williamson C*. Genome-Wide Association study of Intrahepatic Cholestasis of Pregnancy Identifies Several Susceptibility Loci in Liver-Specific Regulatory Elements. Nature Communications, 2022; 13(1):4840. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-29931-z.
5. Ovadia C, (54 co-authors), Thornton J, Williamson C. Ursodeoxycholic acid in intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy: an individual patient data meta-analysis. Lancet Gastro Hep 2021; S2468-1253(21)00074-1. doi: 10.1016/S2468-1253(21)00074-1. PMID: 33915090.
6. Vasavan T, Deepak S, (18 co-authors), Fifer WP, Williamson C. Fetal cardiac dysfunction in intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy is associated with elevated serum bile acid concentrations. J Hepatology 2021; 74: 1087-1096. doi: 10.1016/j.jhep.2020.11.038. PMID: 33276032.
7. Turro E,…Williamson C**,…Ouwehand W (one of 65 leading authors). Whole-genome sequencing of patients with rare diseases in a national health system. Nature 2020. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2434-2.
8. Chappell LC, Bell J, (7 co-authors), Williamson C*, Thornton JG* Ursodeoxycholic acid versus placebo in women with intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (PITCHES): a randomised controlled trial. Lancet. 2019; 394(10201):849-860. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(19)31270-X. PMID: 31378395.
9. Ovadia C, Perdones-Montero C, (16 co-authors), Marchesi JR*, Williamson C*. Enhanced microbial bile acid deconjugation and impaired ileal uptake in pregnancy repress intestinal regulation of bile acid synthesis. Hepatology, 2019; 70(1):276-293. PMID: 30983011.
10. Ovadia C, Sklavounos A, (23 co-authors), Chappell LC*, Williamson C*. Adverse perinatal outcomes of intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy and association with biochemical markers: results of aggregate and independent