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Our research spans accross five research themes:

Our work

Cancer GI tract

Cancer

Cancer is a major disease globally, with an estimated 8.2 million deaths in 2012. The third most common cancer, in both genders, is colon cancer and the majority of cases of this disease tend be random and not due to genes inherited from parents.

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gut brain axis

Gut brain axis

The actions of the gut microbiota are not confined to the gut and the liver, to which the blood from the gut drains and is processed. There is a body of work building which shows that the gut microbiota can play a role as a driver of behaviour, stress response and some brain diseases, such as dementia.

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Inflammation

Inflammation

Inflammation is a basic response of the host to injury. In the gut, many pro-inflammatory compounds are produced by the gut microbiota and these organisms as thus involved in promoting inflammation.

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Our work 2

Obesity

Obesity

The current pandemic of obesity is a significant and growing healthcare issue. Not only do the patients suffer from the excessive weight, they also display a series of co-morbidities which include cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

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Pill

Drug metabolism

Whilst the liver is seen as the major organ for drug metabolism in the body it is often forgotten that the gut microbiotoa also undertakes a range of important biotransformations on drugs and pharmacologically active dietary products. In particular the gut microbiota are adept at reductive drug metabolism and this can be essential for the efficacy of drugs such as sulpasalazine which is a prodrug of 5-aminosalicylic acid used in the treatment of ulcerative colitis and inflammatory bowel conditions.

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