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

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

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/...

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.

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. 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.

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

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...

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

My 1st gig since my illness, @fontainesdc.bsky.social at Glasgow you were outstanding!

Winter arrives

Roman beef stew with tagliatelle 😊

Deadline fast approaching for applications for the CRUK Black Leaders in Cancer PhD Scholarship Programme. Our lab is project number 7 (immune therapy in liver cancer). Read more here and if you know of someone eligible to apply please contact me for more details. www.ncl.ac.uk/cancer/train...

We are designing pre-clinical models of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) Read here about how we have innovated ex-vivo murine tumour microenvironment tissue slices to enable drug discovery while addressing the key 3Rs (reduction, refinement, replacement) aims. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our Newcastle University Cancer Centre account is now open, we are community of 100+ cancer researchers focused on discovery and translational oncology. Please follow us on @nucancer.bsky.social for updates/news etc

Wow, stunning image!

Fascinating and well worth a watch, just don’t become paranoid! youtu.be/rObAX1r8r0s?...

Walking, the gentlest exercise and medicine 😊

For my first post, a lovely image depicting platelets aggregating onto a neutrophil, which I generated with text to image option on Flux1.AI. Our research group at @newcastleuni.bsky.social are studying these aggregates as immune modulators of the tumour microenvironment in hepatocellular carcinoma