I am excited to have arrived in Helsinki for @espghansociety.bsky.social Annual Meeting. I’ll be presenting some more of our biliary atresia data and recording a very exciting in-person version of the ESPGHAN podcast.

Here's a preprint of our work where we found that most genes which cause monogenic, severe liver disease also affect the onset and/or severity of liver-related traits in adults. [Not yet peer reviewed.] doi.org/10.1101/2025...

I’m at @easlnews.bsky.social Congress in Amsterdam this week and sharing some of our biliary atresia data tomorrow

The Finisher: Jasmin Paris and the Barkley Marathons. A wonderful film about wonderful people, and an incredibly inspiring Jasmin.

Here we are in Spanish talking liver health. #WorldLiverDay

Paediatric Liver Transplantation: A new perspective💡 How common is graft fibrosis in young recipients - and what does it mean long term?💭 Join Dr Steffen Hartleif on the latest #ESPGHAN podcast as he explores future strategies in immunosuppression.🔍 Listen now🎧 ow.ly/LWkE50Vlk1T

I remember seeing this work presented last year and it’s stunning.

2nd run of Visium HD complete 🫡

Love this ...

The downside of being totally focused on functional experiments for my fellowship application is that I have become a '40 unread emails' person

And here I am thinking that my multicolour immunofluorescence is pretty

The real question is ‘will I ever find a paper that Alex (Knisley) thinks is free of major flaws?’

I’m back up in Edinburgh this week learning new spatial techniques and using some very rare paediatric samples. All round quite exciting.

I _think_ we needed to dilute our samples a bit more

Anyone interested in working with me at Institute of Metabolic Science - Metabolic Research Laboratories, University of Cambridge, on how AMGEN's new obesity drug MariTide works? I have a 3 year postdoc position available! Deadline March 31st! please share www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/50529/

I know I'm biased, but I'd say this is a particularly good one. Keep sending me your feedback and requests!

The CRUK Clinical PhD Programme at @unibirmingham.bsky.social is open for applications. This is an amazing opportunity. If you're interested in applying, then I have project around the immunology of hepatocellular carcinoma (and also some HCC GWAS hits to follow-up) so get in touch!

Nature research paper: Human-correlated genetic models identify precision therapy for liver cancer https://go.nature.com/41qNkbs

I’m enjoying Tim Urban’s book and I’m doing my best to follow his advice “What if I’m wrong about some of what I think?”

🚨🚨Job Alert🚨🚨 Do you have skills in computational biology? Do you want to work on somatic mutations in #hcc?? Do you want to work in an international collaboration with @s-j-aitken.bsky.social? Come and join us in Cambridge! 🗓️ Closing date 31/Mar/2025 www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/50461/

I’m coming to conclusion of a GWAS project and only now truly starting to understand what pruning and fine-mapping means. And LocusZoom is wonderful.

I like to differentiate between the ‘messing around’ experiments and the ‘proper’ ones. Much of the time in the lab I’m trying new stuff, testing meddling around with the protocol and seeing if there’s any hint it works. It’s low risk and really fun.

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Type 2 fun in research: Yesterday I thought I was “done” with first draft of a paper, only to do a double-check and find a substantial error that will take at least two days’ work. Frustrating but I am glad to have caught it.

The year I applied to paediatric hepatology there was n=1 job in the UK, but with the increasing competition ratios, I sometimes wonder whether I am already too out of touch to really understand what it is like to be a trainee clinician in the UK. Good luck to all receiving GRID results around now

Spatial and single-cell imaging technologies are great but don’t underestimate: 1) the time required for optimisation 2) the depth vs coverage balance 3) the complexity of analysis Plus the fear of ruining a slide after you’ve already paid for it

This must have been a difficult study to do and the results are important. I’ll be interested to see what happens in the next 1-2 years; whether a brief period of hypocaloric diet at a critical phase of insulin resistance affects long-term risk of diabetes

Today I am considering the merits of various methods/combinations of single-cell imaging and sequencing technologies for a large paediatric study I’ll be running soon But more importantly, Edinburgh has great sunrises

Find someone who will explain to you how and why your ideas, hypothesis, and experimental design might be flawed. Be wary of the advice: “Sounds great! Go for it!” without any caveats.

We are on our second starter pack for GI / Hepatology Part 1: go.bsky.app/8Pho2tp Part 2: go.bsky.app/VGyLKjR #medsky #GIsky #LiverSky

Watching code run and snow fall between experiments up here in Edinburgh

Working on a long, long overdue genetics manuscript on the way up to Edinburgh to do some experiments for a couple of weeks Pre-print hopefully available in under a month

Mostly assembling party food today

Flow this morning

Turns out that supervising in the lab is difficult.

Imaging this morning

Your regular reminder that: “The days are long but the years are short” - Gretchen Rubin

Peak time for kids to start beautiful, independent, imaginative play: 2 minutes before bed or trying to leaving the house

Paediatric liver transplants test ethical boundaries.💭 Join experts Norman Junge & Steffen Hartleif in this #ESPGHAN webinar as they explore complex ethical challenges.🔎 📅 19th February | 🕔 17:00–18:00 CET Secure your place today 📍 ow.ly/Nj5f50UQ5nj

Welcome to the new home for my stream of consciousness. A mixture of: Liver biology, Paediatrics, Immunology, Careers, Running, and Philosophy