“Molecular and cellular descriptors of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases”

Host: Dr Andy Howden

Venue: Sir Kenneth & Lady Noreen Murray Seminar Room, CTIR 2.84, SLS

Bio  

Originally trained as a Biochemist (MSc) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany, I carried out my doctoral thesis (Dr. rer. biol. hum.) at the Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich (LMU), under the supervision of Prof Stephan Brand at the University Hospital’s Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Unit. Working on cytokine signalling in intestinal epithelial cells, the doctorate sparked by interest in translational research and intestinal pathophysiology. Since then, cytokine signalling and cellular biology in the context of inflammatory diseases, in particular IBD, has been the dominating research topic throughout my career. For my first postdoctoral position, I joined the lab of Dame Fiona Powrie at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in Oxford. My work during this time focussed on the role of fibroblasts in IBD, and on classifying the heterogeneity of tissue inflammatory processes in patients with IBD. For my second Postdoc, I stayed at the same institute, but joined Prof Christopher Buckley’s research group to get exposed to another class of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis. For that I deployed multi-omic approaches to profile patient tissues and blood. Recently, I returned to focus on IBD, setting up my own research group at the Translational Gastroenterology Unit (TGU) at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. My research program supported by a Wellcome Trust Career Development Award aims do dissect pathomechanisms of established intestinal fibrosis in patients with Crohn’s disease, investigating in particular the role of fibroblasts and epigenetics. In addition to that I am leading on two translational projects to assess the feasibility of experimental readouts (RNAseq and AI image analysis of H&E histology) as tools to aid clinical decision making in the future