Very proud of our latest review on the challenges of surgical treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma

China town!

As Newcastle University’s Professor of Hepatology, I am honoured and extremely proud to be a contributor to its world top 10 ranking in Gastroenterology and Hepatology 👊

The NU Conference was a big success with a superb plenary from Ram DasGupta (CRUK Scotland). Prizes for talks - J Dishington (1st) and H Stewart; flash talks - E Woodward (1st), L Taylor (2nd); posters - E Hackney (1st), K Papa (2nd). Congrats and to all presenters for giving us a memorable day!

Spectacular 3 days in Singapore. Everyone should visit

Very excited to be just a weekend away from this UK conference on neutrophil biology that we are hosting at Newcastle. It includes international keynotes but most important the majority of speakers are early career researchers. #immunology #inflammation #neutrophils #humandisease

FEBS Press Chronic liver injury can lead to severe conditions such as cirrhosis and liver cancer. Unfortunately, there are no effective treatments to halt or reverse liver fibrosis, which makes new therapeutic ....

Our latest paper, published today in FEBS Letters is a chemical biology study on development of drugs selectively targeting HDAC6 with demonstration of efficacy in a human model of liver fibrosis. febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

RNA neoantigen vaccines prime long-lived CD8+ T cells in pancreatic cancer - Nature In a phase 1 trial, patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma who were treated with surgery and bespoke neoantigen mRNA vaccines combined with anti-PD-L1 and chemotherapy exhibited marked lo...

Wow, phenomenal work. 75% of pancreatic cancer patients alive 3 years after receiving a personalised mRNA vaccine. Durable CD8+ T cell responses underlying the therapeutic benefit. Congrats to the authors 👊👏

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Dr Amy Collins from our group and @nucancer.bsky.social selected for early career researcher oral presentation of her poster on use of a complex human tissue culture model of liver cancer for drug development.

Next up, our talented PhD student Keara, who was super busy at her poster on development of a tumour slice screening platform for discovery of liver cancer drug targets.

Dr Amy Collins is busy at her poster on modelling hepatocellular carcinoma at the 2025 EASL Liver Cancer Summit in Paris. Funding for her work from Cancer Research U.K.

Human-correlated genetic models identify precision therapy for liver cancer - Nature As proof of principle, an analysis using a suite of human-aligned immunocompetent mouse models of hepatocellular carcinoma identifies a promising therapeutic candidate, cladribine, which acts in ...

An important new study on the genetics of liver cancer published today in Nature led by Prof Tom Bird of Edinburgh University with contributions from @damann1.bsky.social, @jleslie1.bsky.social and others of @nucancer.bsky.social.

Well done Keara, very proud of you!

THE CURE It Can Never Be The Same @ Meltdown Festival, London 6/24/18 YouTube video by citizenborland

The Cure. Somber, Sad, Glorious (and oh that bass!) 😊

On World Cancer Day we welcome Dr Abdullah Malik to our liver cancer team. Abdullah is a talented surgeon who has won a prestigious Medical Research Council clinician scientist training fellowship to research the basis of recurrence of cancer following surgical removal of a patient’s tumour.

Today is World Cancer Day. At the NU Centre for Cancer we are dedicated to working towards more effective and gentler treatments for cancer patients.

The graph is reporting a decline in published works. That is not the same as leaving a research career.

Others have said the same. Maybe a new career move if and when the funding dries up 🤣

🤣

In addition to my trials and tribulations with bowel cancer I also suffer from pre-cancerous lesions on the skin around my eyes. So now have a new pair of wraparound prescription shades to offer a better degree of protection. Not sure if I look more like The Terminator or a character from The Matrix

Blood Cancer UK | Blood cancer researcher recognised in King’s New Years Honours The King’s New Years Honours list has been announced with Blood Cancer UK's trustee awarded an OBE for services to children.

We are very proud that our very own Professor Christine Harrison has been deservedly recognised with an OBE for her work on improving the scientific knowledge and care of childhood leukaemia. bloodcancer.org.uk/news/blood-c...

Hmmm yes, Dylan may have have some genius moments but he is obviously a bit of a knob

Keep going and wishing you happy holidays and good health in 2025

The Unbearable Slowness of Being: Why do we live at 10 bits/s? This article is about the neural conundrum behind the slowness of human behavior. The information throughput of a human being is about 10 bits/s. In comparison, our sensory systems gather data at ~10^...

Our brain is not a computer

“Why does the brain need billions of neurons to process 10bits/sec? Why can we only think about one thing at a time?”

Fascinating paper makes me wonder if aspects of neurodivergence (e.g. ADHD) are the brain trying to be a little faster?

arxiv.org/abs/2408.10234

Watching my boy score his 2nd try for Siena College in their winning final against Iowa certainly took my mind of my post-op pain! Get in lad!

What is hopefully the final part of my treatment for bowel cancer done. Currently in the fantastic Newcastle NHS Trust Freeman Hospital recovering from surgery to reverse my ileostomy. Operation done 6 months after my first one that removed the tumour. Onwards and Upwards 😊

If you enjoy a film with a strong narrative and great acting this one is highly recommended!

Honoured to be speaking at this event in summer 2025