Professor Arthur Kaser, is Professor of Gastroenterology at Cambridge University. An academic gastroenterologist, his research has provided fundamental new insight into the mechanism of inflammatory bowel disease. Through the creation and use of genetically engineered mice Professor Kaser discovered that dysregulation of fundamental cell intrinsic processes in an enterocyte can cause Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and that polymorphisms in the genetic elements that control these processes are associated with an enhanced risk to develop these common illnesses.
Biography
Arthur leads the Gastrointestinal Diseases theme of the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre. This is a partnership, funded and supported by the NIHR, between Cambridge University Hospitals and the University of Cambridge to deliver ground-breaking research that benefits patients.
Research
Arthur's laboratory investigates the biology of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. These are two inflammatory bowel diseases that can affect individuals at any age, most often in early adulthood. They emerge from a complex gene - environment interaction. The actual triggers remain still unknown.
Employing and developing a wide range of technologies, from complex genetic models to sophisticated liquid chromatography mass spectrometry, we explore the major biological mechanisms that are affected by risk genes of inflammatory bowel disease. This has generated important insights into how autophagy and endoplasmic reticulum stress collude to drive a pathological unfolded protein response. And most recently led to the discovery of a very fundamental purine enzyme that enables a metabolic cycle balancing electron transfer into mitochondria and controlling immunometabolism of macrophages.
We also run a clinical trials unit, based at Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the Clinical Research Facility, which translates novel insights into therapeutic opportunities for our patients with inflammatory bowel disease. This ranges from proof-of-concept studies and early phase clinical development programmes of novel mechanisms of action up to late phase pivotal registration
Publications
Teaching and Supervisions
Group members:
James A West
Katharina Ramshorn
Lorraine M Holland
Lukas Unger
Alumni:
Jun Inoue
James O Jones
Jonathan W Ashcroft
Janice Y J Lee
Muhammad N B Md-Ibrahim
O Stephen Ojo
Ester Pagano
Georg Thomas Schneditz
Giuseppe Sirago
Thomas Flint