GOSH Charity funds projects to improve the lives of children with rare and complex conditions
24 Apr 2026, 2:55 p.m.
We’re proud to be funding six new research projects. They aim to improve the everyday experience of children and young people living with a rare or complex disease.
Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity (GOSH Charity) has awarded over £400,000 in funding through our Lift Off Grant: Patient Focussed scheme.
Six new research projects
The funded projects are all clinical research projects directly involving patients at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).
Applications were encouraged from all healthcare professionals and non-medical staff. We’re delighted that the funded projects are led by a variety of roles, including a physiotherapist, senior nurse, medical physicist and a consultant cardiologist.
Project spotlight: A new way to detect seizures in children with epilepsy
One of the newly funded projects is led by Dr Rory Piper, Clinical Lecturer in Neurosurgery at UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.
The team will use a powerful scanner to map brain connections in children with epilepsy. They will compare these results to the current standard surgery, which involves implanting a device into the brain, to see if the new method is just as accurate.
If successful, this approach could minimise the need for major surgery, speed up treatment, and improve the chances of children with epilepsy becoming seizure-free.
GOSH Charity has previously funded Dr Piper through the Lewis Spitz Surgeon Scientist PhD Programme in from 2021-2024. This programme supports surgical trainees in gaining research skills to develop future research leaders in paediatric surgical sciences.
“With this funding from GOSH Charity, we aim to develop a safer, faster, and a very precise way to locate the seizure starting point for children with severe epilepsy”.
Meet Riley
Every year, just under 2,000 children and young people are treated at GOSH for epilepsy. One of these young people is Riley.
Shortly after his second birthday, Riley began having seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. At one point, Riley was experiencing over 100 seizures a day, and at age nine he was transferred over to GOSH for brain surgery.
During his recovery, Riley needed plenty of rest and his mum Zoe said it was a massive challenge to keep him from playing football and cricket. But, they managed it, and we’re pleased to say that he has been seizure-free since the night before his operation.
"It’s a lot better living life without worrying - worrying when you go places you might have a seizure or you might not, and what may trigger it, whether it’s sound or something else. I started getting really paranoid about that. After I had my operation, I had quite a few panic attacks at a cricket match, thinking I was going to have a seizure again. But I got past that. I think the only way you can get over it is to put yourself in the same environment, with things in place so you can slowly get used to it.”
Apply for funding
Lift Off Grants: Patient Focussed are one of our research funding schemes. Please visit our research funding pages to explore all opportunities.
If you'd like to sign up to our GOSH Charity research newsletter to hear when funding schemes open and other news, please email researchcomms@gosh.org.