Aligned with The Ritchie Centre’s Fetal and Neonatal Health group, Professor Stuart Hooper established the Fetal and Neonatal Laboratory to apply synchrotron technology to progress understanding of the physiology of fetal and neonatal lung development and the factors that regulate the transition to air breathing at birth. By understanding these changes, it will become possible to moderate the impact of pre-term birth and other problems such as congenital diaphragmatic hernia, on the health of the infant after birth; a diaphragmatic hernia allows abdominal contents to move into the chest cavity during fetal life, which causes the lungs to stop growing.