Liver Immunology & Transplantation

Professor Alberto Sanchez-Fueyo and Dr Niloufar Safinia lead a translational research group focused on developing novel immunomodulatory therapies to ameliorate inflammation and induce immunological tolerance in liver diseases and transplantation. The research group’s expertise includes cell therapy and engineering, regulatory T cell (Treg) biology, and immunometabolism.

Additional interests involve the study of Tregs in cancer and cardiovascular diseases and the use of biomarkers to stratify liver transplant recipients according to their immunological risk and need for immunosuppression.

Professor Sanchez-Fueyo is one of the founders of Quell Therapeutics Ltd, a spin-off biotech manufacturing engineered Treg products to treat inflammatory disorders and transplant patients. Dr Safinia is a Wellcome Trust fellow.

Hepatobiliary Neoplasms

King’s College Hospital hosts one of Europe’s largest hepato-pancreato-biliary cancer clinical services.

Ongoing research in hepatocellular carcinoma involves the characterization of the tumor microenvironment, with a particular emphasis on the role of regulatory T cells, the development of phosphoproteomic biomarkers for patient stratification of first line systemic therapies, and the evaluation of novel combined immunotherapies in early phase clinical trials. In cholangiocarcinoma the emphasis is on conducting multimodal studies to identify molecular features of premalignant lesions, frequently activated biochemical pathways, and tissue biomarkers for intrahepatic CCA subclassification. The clinical service has established close links with the Crick Institute to exploit its large biocollection of pancreatic duct adenocarcinoma clinical samples to identify novel therapeutic targets.

The large clinical service has also enabled examination of clinical and molecular features of uncommon, under-characterised neoplasms such as hepatocellular tumours developed in patients with Abernethy syndrome and biliary intraductal neoplasms.