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Satsangi Group - Experimental Division

Jack Satsangi's early work in Oxford between 1993-2000 focussed on gene discovery in inflammatory bowel disease; the subsequent work of his laboratory group initially in Edinburgh (2000-2018), and on return to Oxford in 2018 has focussed on developing the translational potential of genetic and multi-omic research towards clinical application and personalised care in inflammatory bowel disease. Current themes within the group are the discovery of genetic, epigenetic, proteomic biomarkers to predict disease progression, and response to biological therapies in adults and children; the characterisation of the epigenome in inflammatory bowel disease; the characterisation of the contribution of the HLA region to drug response and immunogenicity of anti-TNF agents; the prediction of steroid-responsiveness in acute severe ulcerative colitis and most recently the response to Covid-19 and the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccination in patients with inflammatory bowel disease.
 
The group has strong established collaborations with other groups in Europe and North America, including the EPIC Consortium (Amsterdam Medical Centre); the SPARE/BIOCYCLE Consortia;  IBD-BIOM and IBD-CHARACTER Consortia;  and the ICARUS and OCTAVE studies. Funding from UKRI,  ECCO, the European Commission, Helmsley Trust and Action Medical Research supports current work.

Our team

In this section

OUR TEAM MEMBERS

 Judith Wellens

I graduated from medical school in 2018 at the University of Leuven (Belgium) and started my internal medicine residency thereafter.Currently, I am focusses on my doctoral research on immunological and microbial aspects in inflammatory bowel disease.As part of the ICARUS-IBD consortium, we try to understand immunological responses to viral infections and vaccinations in IBD patients on immune modulating therapies. We collaborate closely with dr. Craig Thompson and dr. Matthew Edmans at the Peter Medawar institute for pathogen research and dr. Serre-Yu Wong and dr. Jean-Frédéric Colombel at Mount Sinai (New York) to ensure the best possible setting to answer these important questions.Another aspect of my work investigates the role of nutrition and the microbiota in intestinal inflammation in order to find novel prevention and treatment strategies in IBD.

Stephanie Brann 

I am moving to the TGU in August 2021 to take up the role of Study co-ordinator of the international  Icarus study into the sero-prevalence of,  and immune response to Covid-19 in immune compromised patients with IBD. I joined the University of Oxford in December 2018 where I took over the administrative duties for the NewKI Study which is looking at the progression and incidence of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) in the UK population. The aim of the research is to find out which participants are at risk of chronic kidney disease, how their cardiovascular health is affected by this and how screening and monitoring can help. The trial has recruited over 3000 participants in the Thames Valley. Alongside NewKI, in April 2020, I began supporting the PRINCIPLE Trial (CTIMP) which is a UK-wide platform randomised trial of treatments in the community for epidemic and pandemic illnesses. I have particularly enjoyed working on the Infectious Diseases Team with the hope of being able to better advise those at risk of epidemic and pandemic illnesses in the future.

Stephanie Brann

Rahul Kalla

 Dr Kalla is a Consultant Gastroenterologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Edinburgh since 2018. He completed his medical degree at the University of Sheffield (2005) and undertook speciality GI training in the Manchester. He gained a PhD under Professor Satsangi at the University of Edinburgh (2013-2016) investigating the role of epigenetic mechanisms in IBD.

Rahul Kalla

Alex Noble

My interest in research started at the University of Otago in New Zealand where I undertook both my undergraduate and Masters degrees. My Master's project was looking at biomarkers for ME/CFS disease in the laboratory of Prof Warren Tate. I then moved into the area of epigenetics under the guidance of Dr Amy Osborne at the University of Canterbury for my PhD, from which I graduated in 2021. During my thesis, I became interested in how environmental exposures occurring very early in life could impact the development of disease. This has led me to my current research interest in understanding the epigenetics in childhood-onset IBD.

Alex Noble

Thomas Chapman

Dr Chapman was appointed Consultant Gastroenterologist at St Richard’s and Worthing Hospitals, University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust in 2020. He is IBD lead for St Richard’s Hospital. He graduated from Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’ School of Medicine with Distinction in 2006. During his undergraduate training he intercalated in Nutrition with Basic Medical Sciences, and was awarded First Class Honours. He undertook his Gastroenterology Specialist Training in Oxford and surrounding hospitals. He gained a DPhil in 2018 in Professor Simmons’ group as an Oxford Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellow, with subsequent funding from the Oxford Biomedical Research Centre, undertaking research into the immunopathogenesis of Crohn’s disease. On completion of his Gastroenterology training he undertook a post CCT IBD fellowship in Professor Satsangi’s group. A particular ongoing research interest is the personalisation of therapy in IBD.

Thomas Chapman