Home| Emeritus Professor of Gastrointestinal Science |
Contact details:
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| Fax: | +44 20 7375 2103 | |
| Email: | d.l.wingate@qmul.ac.uk | |
| Address: |
Centre for Digestive Diseases, |
Biography
David Wingate was educated at Oxford University and the Middlesex Hospital Medical School (now University College , London ). While at Oxford , he spent one year in the laboratory of Dr Dennis Parsons, carrying out research on water absorption in the rat intestine; the resulting thesis was awarded the Gotch Memorial Medal by the University. After several years of postgraduate clinical training, he returned to his original interest in intestinal water absorption. He set up his own laboratory at the Middlesex Hospital in London , and then spent a year at the Mayo Clinic studying the effects of bile acids on water absorption under Sidney Phillips and Alan Hofmann. Returning to London , he joined the London Hospital Medical College (now Barts and the London School of Medicine, Queen Mary, University of London ), first as a physiologist, and subsequently as a gastroenterologist. In 1974, he changed his research field to studying the motor activity of the gut, at first in animal models, and then in man. Interdisciplinary research between gastroenterology, surgery, and physiology led, in 1981, to the creation of the Gastrointestinal Science Research Unit in a new building. As Director of the Unit - and from 1987 as Professor of Gastrointestinal Science - he was involved in the study of gut motor activity, focussing on the neural regulation of motor function and the interactions between the central nervous system and the enteric nervous system. Basic research in animal models led to the development of techniques for detecting motor activity in man, and in detecting and defining the perturbations caused by disease. His research group were pioneers in this field for more than 2 decades, starting in 1979, with a case report in Lancet , showing small bowel motor abnormalities during a continuous 48-hr recording in a patient with irritable bowel syndrome. Subsequent studies showed that motor abnormalities of the small bowel that can be evoked by stress and are associated with symptoms, and that are absent during sleep. In recent years, the focus of the group has shifted from defining clinical physiology to the diagnostic use of new technologies. In collaboration with Professor N S Williams, whose interests lie in colorectal disorders, and Professor D F Evans, an expert in oesophageal physiology, a diagnostic unit for detecting motor disorders of the gut was established, and has grown to be the busiest such unit in Europe. State-of-the-art technology is used to assess more than 2000 patients each year.
He has travelled extensively, having given lectures across Europe, in North and South America, and in Australia , Japan , Korea , and China . He was one of the founder members of the European Motility Society, hosting the second meeting in 1972, and in 1974 he was Chairman of the International Motility Symposium in Oxford . In 1989, together with Yvette Tache, he founded the continuing series of triennial symposia on Brain-Gut Interaction. He was a member of the Nerve-Gut Council of the American Gastroenterological Association. He served as joint editor of the journal Neurogastroenterology & Motility, as Review Editor of Gut , and on several editorial boards. He is the author of more than 100 peer review papers, as well as numerous reviews and book chapters and has co-edited 5 books.
In October 2000, he retired from his academic post, and the Gastrointestinal Science Research Unit was formally renamed as 'The Wingate Institute'. He is now Emeritus Professor of Gastroenterology at Queen Mary College , University of London . He was a member of the Scientific Programme Committee for the 2002 World Congress of Gastroenterology held in Bangkok , where he chaired 3 sessions, and gave 2 lectures. He was chairman, for the Congress, of a Working Team charged with preparing a definitive taxonomy of gut motor disorders; the results were presented at the Congress.
Research Activity
No longer an active research worker, Prof Wingate retains an interest in the clinical physiology and pathophysiology of gastrointestinal motor activity, and is available for consultation with active workers in the field. As the individual who can claim responsibility for the introduction of the term 'neurogastroenterology' into the clinical and research domain, he remains committed to seeing research activity in this field flourish in the Institute on the Whitechapel campus devoted to this area of research, and to the translation of research findings into clinical practice.
Key Publications
. Parsons DS, Wingate DL: The effect of osmotic gradients on fluid transfer across rat intestine in vitro. Biochem Biophys Acta 1961, 46:170-183
• Wingate DL, Phillips SF, Hofmann AF: Effects of glycine-conjugated bile acids with and without lecithin on water and glucose absorption in perfused human jejunum. J Clin Invest 1973, 52:1230-1236
• Wingate DL, Pearce EA, Hutton M, Dand A, Thompson HH, Wunsch E: Quantitative comparison of the effects of cholecystokinin, secretin and pentagastrin on gastrointestinal myoelectric activity in the conscious dog. Gut 1978, 19:593-601
• Thompson DG, Laidlaw JM, Wingate DL: Abnormal small bowel motility demonstrated by radiotelemetry in a patient with irritable colon. Lancet 1979, ii:1321-1323
• Thompson DG, Wingate DL, Archer L, Benson MJ, Green WJ, Hardy RJ: Normal patterns of human upper small bowel activity recorded by prolonged radiotelemetry. Gut 1980, 21:500-506
• Wingate DL: Backwards and forwards with the migrating complex. Dig Dis Sci 1981, 26:641-666
• Ewart WR, Wingate DL: Central representation and opioid modulation of gastric mechanoreceptor activity in the rat. Am J Physiol 1983, 244:G27-G32
• Kumar D, Wingate DL: The irritable bowel syndrome: a paroxysmal motor disorder. Lancet 1985, ii:973-977
• Valori RM, Kumar D, Wingate DL: Effects of different types of stress and prokinetic' drugs on the control of the fasting motor complex in humans. Gastroenterology 1986, 90:1890-1900
• Kellow JE, Gill RC, Wingate DL: Prolonged ambulant recordings of small bowel motility demonstrate abnormalities in the irritable bowel syndrome. Gastroenterology 1990, 98:1208-1218
