I support the Liquid Biopsies team with analysis of microRNA datasets, continuing the work of colleagues at Liverpool’s Computational Biology Facility. In particular I lead the analyses for the Pancreas and Liver injury working groups, identifying potential biomarkers of organ injury, disease progression or severity. More recently, alongside colleagues from Liquid Biopsies and Pancreas injury , I have been exploring microRNA abundance behaviour in healthy volunteers to make the most of this unique TransBioLine-generated resource.

Refining thousands of biomarker candidates to a practical number is always a challenge, and here we needed to find a consistent approach across work packages with varying contexts of use. With so many participants recruited for a study of this type, many options were possible—a good problem to have. The clarity from the work package leads in defining their scientific needs has helped make this, I won’t say a breeze but, a manageable challenge!

It’s been a privilege to help identify potential biomarkers of pancreatic injury, for prospective validation in the MAP-1 clinical trial led by Robert Sutton at the University of Liverpool. This a rare opportunity for microRNAs as biomarkers that I am very optimistic about. By next year I hope we will have at least two outputs that I will have made a substantial contribution towards, with great potential for more.

It would have to be, of course, the people I have been lucky enough to work with. As someone who joined the consortium relatively late, my collaborators’ professionalism in meeting TransBioLine’s goals in the face of pandemic delays has been very impressive. I’ve enjoyed the frank and insightful discussions at the General Assembly meetings, and learned a huge amount about the formal qualification process which was a new area for me.