The Gut Translational Research Group

Individual members of the The Gut Translational Research Group gathered together and stood on steps facing the camera

Professor Gwo-tzer Ho's lab, The Gut Translational Research Group, is strongly focused on understanding the fundamentals of gut biology and disease-specific mechanisms in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

Strategically, the Ho Lab links basic discovery science to human translation with a portfolio program of immune-metabolism, immunity to biomarker discovery and interventional trials.

  • Mitochondrial Danger Signals in IBD (MUSIC Study) - this Scotland-wide prospective longitudinal cohort study incorporates a clinical and multi-omic approach towards understanding ‘how the gut heals in IBD’.
  • Mitochondrial Anti-oxidant therapy in IBD (MARVEL Study) - building from work in the lab, this is a UK multicentre Phase 2 RCT into the use of oral mitochondrial antioxidants in Ulcerative colitis
  • Oral-gut microbiome interaction and immune response in Crohn’s disease
  • Characterisation of M-cells and bacterial sampling in Crohn’s disease
  • Fatigue IBD - Large scale characterisation of IBD-associated fatigue towards mechanistic studies to develop new therapeutic approaches
  • Metabolic approaches to enhance gut repair in IBD using patient-derived organoids
  • Novel diagnostic technologies - Mitochondrial and metabolic markers. IDXsense (ERC-funded) project to develop Granzyme B tests to stratify T-cell responses in IBD
    • With Professor Marc Vendrell.
  • Imaging approaches, FATE-CD, the use of PET-MRI FAPI scanning to understand and monitor the development of fibrosis in Crohn’s disease
    • With Dr Rahul Kalla
  • Development of novel in vitro experimental plaffroms to study human IBD gut
    • With Professor Robert Gray and Nikolaj Gadergaard
  • Macrophage biology in Crohn’s disease
    • With Dr Calum Bain and Dr Gareth Rhys Jones
  • Building the next generation data approach with real-world NHS clinical data to predict IBD-specific mechanisms
    • With Dr Shaun Chuah

Key experimental approaches are strongly based on direct human patients data and bio samples including use of patient-derived organoids, immune-cells and multi-omic data with almost 1,500 patients involved in our studies in the last five years.

Key Funders

Meet the Team

Our People

A head and shoulders portrait shot of Professor Gwo-Tzer Ho

Professor Gwo-tzer Ho

Lab leader Gwo-tzer, a Professor of Gastroenterology, has a strong interest in understanding the processes that govern gut mucosal healing in Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative colitis; and bridging discovery science to the clinic. He continues to care for IBD patients in the clinic and maintains a keen interest in patient-public engagement.

 

A head and shoulders portrait shot of Calum Bain 

Dr Calum Bain

Calum is an immunologist with an interest in the fundamental biology of innate immune cells, particularly monocytes and macrophages. These cells are crucial for normal development, tissue health and protective immunity, but they also become dysregulated and disease-promoting in chronic inflammatory and fibrotic diseases. Calum’s lab focusses on understanding how essential peacekeeper cells can become power aggressors in the context of disease.

 

A head and shoulders portrait shot of Dr Gareth-Rhys Jones 

Dr Gareth-Rhys Jones

Gareth is a gastroenterologist and new group leader in human gut immunology. He is an IBD physician and mucosal immunologist who is interested in how myeloid cells influence gut inflammation and healing.

 

 A head and shoulders portrait image of Shaun Chuah

Dr Shaun Chuah

Principal Investigator Shaun is a Clinical Senior Research Fellow and academic gastroenterologist with research interests in applying machine learning, data engineering and cloud computation techniques to investigate the complex biology of inflammatory bowel disease and other immune-related conditions.

 

Affiliates

A head and shoulders portrait shot of Professor David Wilson

Professor David Wilson

David is Professor of Paediatric Gastroenterology at the Royal Sick Children Hospital and has led in research in early onset-IBD, publishing around 200 papers and played prominent leadership roles in this area. Together with Gwo-tzer, he developed the ‘All-ages’ IBD research, where scientific studies are focused on both adults and children with IBD. David leads the UK-wide miniMUSIC study exploring mitochondrial and microbiome factors in disease pathogenesis.

 

A head and shoulders portrait shot of Rahul Kalla 

Dr Rahul Kalla

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Rahul is Consultant Gastroenterologist as the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. He currently has an MRC CARP fellowship award investigating the role FAPI PET/MRI imaging in the evolution of fibrosis in Crohn’s disease. He has a strong record in IBD biomarker studies and was pivotal in the EU-FP7 funded IBD CHARACTER consortium. He leads the Scotland-wide FATE-CD, study for which Glasgow is a key partner.