Richard Issitt gained his Doctorate in cardiopulmonary bypass related neurological injury from the University of Southampton. He is currently a Postdoctoral Clinical Research Fellow and Senior Paediatric Perfusionist at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust (GOSH). Since 2018, he has also been Communications and Engagement Lead of the Digital Research Environment (DRE) for GOSH DRIVE, Great Ormond Street's Digital Research, Informatics and Virtual Environments Unit. Richard is also an Honorary Clinical Lecturer at the Centre for Heart Failure, Transplantation and Extracorporeal Support, part of University College London's Institute of Cardiovascular Science. Richard's research goal is to develop a bioinformatician-perfusionist role in the future to better understand how real-time intraoperative changes can influence long-term outcomes in children with cardiovascular diseases.

Dr Issitt has authored more than 60 research papers, and been cited appoximately 300 times. He has presented at international conferences around the globe. He teaches the paediatric module of the Bristol University M.Sc in Perfusion Science and is a reviewer for multiple peer review journals, as well as sitting on the Editorial Board of the journal Perfusion.

Dr Issitt is the only dedicated paediatric perfusionist in the UK with a Doctorate, and has taken the GOSH perfusion department from no publications 10 years ago, to over 30, establishing GOSH as the most active perfusion research department in the UK. He is one of only 3 perfusionists to win the Society of Perfusionist’s research award twice, and was the youngest perfusionist ever to be granted Fellowship to the College of Clinical Perfusionists in 2008.

Richard's research is funded by a British Heart Foundation Clinical Research Training Fellowship.