Email: neil.hanley@manchester.ac.uk

Research profile and key clinical specialties

How is the human body put together? My group is fascinated by human embryonic and early fetal development allied to stem cell biology with its diverse ramifications for later life disease including cancer.

Although I am a clinical endocrinologist my group cuts across virtually all specialties. We deploy cutting-edge bulk, single cell and spatial technologies probing chromatin, RNA and protein biology.

More widely, I contribute to aspects of a pioneering programme into organ fibrosis, especially of the liver, with Professor Karen Piper Hanley. This spans basic mechanistic discovery through to clinical diagnostics development with artificial intelligence.

Two key publications

• Gerrard DT, Berry AA, Jennings RE, Piper Hanley K, Bobola N, Hanley NA. An integrative transcriptomic atlas of organogenesis in human embryos. eLife. 2016; 5. PMC 4996651
• Gerrard DT, Berry AA, Jennings RE, Birket MJ, et al, Hanley NA. Dynamic changes in the epigenomic landscape regulate human organogenesis and link to developmental disorders. Nature Communications. 2020. 11:3920. PMC7413392

Possible PhD projects

• An epigenomic model of human organogenesis to decipher novel causes of developmental disorders.
• Understanding neural crest migration and hypoxia to understand hereditary endocrine neoplasia.
• Developmental insights into Barrett’s oesophagus.
• Early detection of organ fibrosis by understanding disease mechanism.

More information

I understand the clinical academic pathway having previously been a doctoral, intermediate, and senior fellow with Wellcome or UK Government.

I am Vice-Dean for research responsible for driving inter-disciplinarity with engineering and physical sciences, including maths.

Recent members of my group are now running their own research programmes as intermediate fellows or independent investigators

Keywords: Embryonic, foetal, endocrinologist, RNA, chromatin, organogenesis, Barrett’s oesophagus, fibrosis, Neil, Hanley, Manchester

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