Profile

I am 49 years old (ancient!), married and together with my wife (Jelena who is also a scientist working on liver disease) we have three daughters aged 22, 17 and 15 plus a young son who is 4 years old. My work is exciting and very rewarding as it is aimed at discovering cures for a very serious condition that makes a lot of people of all ages very sick, my team and I have made real progress and are even involved with a clinical trial for a new treatment.

I have a large research team of around 18 young scientists and most of my day is spent helping them to design ana analyse their experiments, each morning I have a lab meeting with 3-4 scientists where we discuss their work, I then spend the rest of the day looking at data from the lab, writing research papers and research grant applications.

I provide a general lecture on liver disease to groups of schools in the Newcastle region. I have a closer relationship with one of these schools and recently ran a joint research project where a group[ of 6 students came to the lab on two afternoons to get involved in our experiments! The educational film that I would have made with the money would greatly improve the quality of my presentations at the schools and hopefully help teach young people how it is important to look after your liver by not drinking heavily, eating a healthy diet and taking plenty of exercise.