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Dr Katherine Coldwell

Fellow, Junior Research Fellow

Daphne Jackson Research Fellow

Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology

PGCert Brookes, BSc, PhD La Trobe University

Dr Kate Coldwell rejoined the University of Oxford in August 2024 as a Daphne Jackson Research Fellow funded by the Kennedy Trust for Rheumatology Research and the Medical Research Council (MRC). She is based at the Oxford Centre for Microbiome Studies in the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology. Her Daphne Jackson Fellowship has allowed her to restart her research career after a break of 10 years and to learn computational biology. Kate’s research interest focuses on the human gut microbiome and the gut-liver axis.

Her current research is on primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) which is a rare liver disease where the flow of bile from the liver is disrupted. The cause of PSC is unknown, but the gut and the gut microbiome are likely involved, particularly as PSC is closely associated with inflammatory bowel disease.

Kate is studying a cohort of people with PSC in the longitudinal DYNAMHIX in PSC study looking at markers of intestinal inflammation and permeability, as well as microbiome-derived metabolites.  This aims to understand how disrupted bile flow in PSC affects the gut microbiome, and in turn, the liver.  By investigating these markers over time (longitudinally), the order of their effects can be explored which tells us more about the causes of PSC.

Prior to being awarded a Daphne Jackson Research Fellowship, Kate has a decade of experience teaching in secondary education in STEM, where she:

  • mentored trainee teachers of all subjects
  • supervised trainee teachers in Science and Computing
  • was Digital Champion and Digital Strategy Lead for a multiacademy trust of schools
  • is an education consultant working with education publishers, with expertise in pedagogies of memory and revision
  • authors science teaching and learning resources.

Alongside PSC, Kate’s previous work included:

  • the therapeutic potential of stem cells originating from umbilical cord blood
  • biomarkers that indicate whether a cancer treatment is working or not
  • the synergistic interaction of anticancer therapeutics which work through different mechanism of action
  • detection of anticancer drug-DNA adducts at very low levels (as occur in patients taking doxorubicin).