Nicholas Ilott

Overview

I predominantly utilise high-throughput methods including RNA-seq, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and metabolomics in human cohort studies and models of inflammatory diseases to generate hypotheses about how changes to the microbiome and the host relate to each other in terms of disease onset and progression.

I have become increasingly interested in the interplay between the liver and the gut and how a breakdown in these interactions may contribute to the development of diseases such as primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) and associated IBD. To understand this disease better I am currently leading multiple projects that aim to dissect how potentially pathogenic bacteria thrive in disease-associated intestinal niches, how the tissue landscape is altered in PSC in terms of gene expression and proteomic profiles, and how microbial metabolism associates with disease processes over time.

Current projects

1) A framework to identify pathobiont fitness effects in gastrointestinal diseases.

2) Proteomic assessment of oxidative stress responses in PSC-UC.

3) DYNAMHIX in PSC: Longitudinal dynamics of the hepatic-intestinal axis in PSC.

I am also a bioinformatics lead for the Oxford Centre for Microbiome Studies (OCMS). In this role (and along with all of the OCMS team) I am responsible for the provision of support to researchers across the university and nationally who require expertise in microbiome experiments and data analysis. This has led to the development of multiple collaborative projects that aim to identify changes to the microbiome across a diverse set of disease states and/or treatment strategies.