Overview

Cohort: 9

I am a gastroenterology registrar with an interest in inflammatory bowel disease and the immunobiology underlying differential responses to advanced therapies (biologics and small molecule drugs).

I graduated from Newcastle University in 2017, having completed an intercalated Master of Research degree (2015/16). In addition to research, I have interests in widening participation and medical education. In 2020, I completed a Diploma in Medical Education.

I was awarded an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship in 2021, during which time I worked closely with Professor Chris Lamb to develop and operationalise the IBD-RESPONSE study. I was awarded the 4Ward North PhD Fellowship in 2025.

PhD title

Profiling peripheral blood immunophenotypes to identify predictive biomarkers and associated immunobiology of response to advanced therapies in Crohn’s disease.

Brief summary of PhD project

Treatment non-response is a key unmet clinical need in Crohn’s disease. Despite expanding therapeutic choices, the chance of any given treatment inducing remission is <50%, with no current means of selecting the right drug, for the right patient, at the right time.

To break boundaries of therapeutic efficacy and minimise expenditure on ineffective treatments, blood-based biomarkers stratifying patients to effective advanced therapies are needed to inform drug positioning within individualised treatment algorithms.

My research aims to identify and functionally validate pre-treatment immunophenotypes that predict treatment outcomes in a cohort of patients with moderate to severely active Crohn’s disease (part of the IBD-RESPONSE study).

I will use sequential scRNA-seq, proteomic and flow cytometry analyses to interrogate immune cell phenotype and function, potentially leading to new insights into IBD disease immunobiology and treatment resistance, as well as novel target identification for future drug development programmes.

Key collaborators/supervisors

• Professor Chris Lamb (Newcastle University)
• Professor Andrew Filby (Newcastle University)
• Professor Mark Travis (The University of Manchester)
• Dr Carl Anderson (Wellcome Sanger Institute)

Specialty interest/techniques

• Precision medicine
• Multi-omic analyses

Career aspirations

My long-term ambition is to lead my own group focusing on IBD immunobiology and translational informatics. I hope to establish a core role within a growing network of IBD clinician researchers, collaborating nationally and internationally to integrate large and complex multi-omics datasets.

Ultimately, I hope to play a leading role in succeeding in a collective ambition to deliver personalised medicine and improved treatment outcomes for patients with inflammatory bowel disease.

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