Henry Halliday

Henry Lewis Halliday (29 November 1945 – 12 November 2022) was a British-Irish paediatrician and neonatologist. In 2021, Halliday was awarded the James Spence Medal for research into neonatology, for coordinating two of the largest neonatal multicentre trials for prevention and treatment of a number of neonatal respiratory illnesses and for a breakthrough in the development of a new lung surfactant that brought relief to very small babies suffering from infant respiratory distress syndrome (RDS).

Life Halliday was one of four siblings, the eldest of four brothers.

In 1977, Halliday married Marjorie Dalziel who was an intensive care nurse. all of whom became doctors.

Career Halliday decided to pursue a career in paediatrics with a specialism in neonatal medicine. In San Francisco, Halliday met the influential John Allen Clements, a specialist in pulmonary surfactant who stimulated his interest in surfactant research and pulmonology. The trial was largely a disappointment as he realised his artificial surfactant wasn't a good substitute for the natural surfactant. called Turfsurf and was a mixture of Dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine and high-density lipoproteins in a ratio of 10:1. However, the surfactant was never developed into a commercial product as the trial was disappointing. Morley analysed Halliday's results in a sub-group of infants of 25–29 weeks’ gestation in four trials and showed how that surfactant treated infants had lower death rates than if treated normally. As the control group was insufficiently large, Morley suggested to Halliday that he make contact with the Swedish physician Bengt Robertson who had also developed a surfactant Poractant alfa known under the trade name Curosurf. when they ran a 27 day pre-clinical trial both In vitro and in rabbit fetus's ventilated with a plethysmograph where Turfsurf was compared to Curosurf. Halliday witnessed the highly efficacious Corusurf at work when pre-term twins were treated, who were going blue in the face due to a lack of oxygen and almost immediately after treatment, turned a healthy pink.

The success of the 27-day experiment spurred Halliday and Robertson to create the first international clinical trial for Corusurf. Halliday created further international clinical trials that led from single dose treatments that reduced mortality in the early 1980s from 50% to about 10% with multiple doses in the 1990s.

Use of postnatal steroids Halliday's other area of interest was in the use of postnatal steroids (inhaled and systemic) to prevent chronic lung disease. He also conducted research on the pathogenesis of CLD and inflammation, as well as iron metabolism in the foetus and neonate and long term follow-up of survivors of CLD.

Societies In 1992 he was appointed Honorary Professor in the Department of Child Health at Queen's University.

Awards and honours In 2010 Halliday was awarded the Maternité Prize from the European Society of Perinatal Medicine for his advocacy in international medical politics that led to structural reform. In 2021, Halliday was awarded the James Spence Medal by the British Paediatric Association for outstanding contributions to paediatric knowledge, Halliday was the first Northern Ireland physician to be awarded the medal.