Professor Mark Pritchard

Introduction
Biography
Key Publications
Recent Publications
Group Members

Cancers of the gastrointestinal tract are common. Modern endoscopic techniques enable accurate detection of both malignant and premalignant abnormalities and recent research has greatly enhanced our understanding of the molecular mechanisms responsible for tumour development.

For example, stomach cancers are now known to arise via a series of premalignant stages following infection with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, while bowel cancers develop via premalignant polyps following acquisition of several genetic mutations. However, only a minority of those individuals who are at risk will ever develop gastrointestinal tumours and the reasons for this are still poorly understood.

My research focuses on how members of the gastrin family of hormones and the expression of various genes which regulate cell death (apoptosis) influence susceptibility towards gastrointestinal tumour development. Ultimately, this research aims to develop biomarkers that will identify individuals who are susceptible to developing gastrointestinal tumours, which may allow earlier and more intensive endoscopic screening.

Education and qualifications

2006: FRCP, Royal College of Physicians.

1999: PhD, University of Manchester.

1991: MBChB (with Hons), University of Manchester.

1988: BSc (1st Class Hons), University of Manchester.

Appointments

2006: Senior Lecturer, Honorary Consultant Gastroenterologist, Liverpool University and Royal Liverpool University Hospital

2002: Wellcome Trust Advanced Clinical Fellow/Senior Lecturer/Honorary Consultant Gastroenterologist, Liverpool University and Royal Liverpool University Hospital

2002: Locum Consultant Gastroenterologist, Liverpool University and Royal Liverpool University Hospital

2000: Clinical Lecturer/Honorary Specialist Registrar, Liverpool University and Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

1999: Specialist Registrar in Gastroenterology, Manchester Royal Infirmary.

1998: Specialist Registrar in Gastroenterology, Royal Preston Hospital.

1997: MRC Clinical Training Fellow, Manchester University.

1995: British Digestive Foundation Research Training Fellow, Manchester University.

1995: Clinical Lecturer/Honorary Registrar, Manchester University and Hope Hospital, Salford.

1992: Medical Senior House Office, Royal Preston Hospital.

1992: Medical House Officer, Manchester Royal Infirmary.

1991: Surgical House Officer, Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

Markers of esteem

2009: Review committee member NIH intestinal stem cell grant panel.

2008: British Society of Gastroenterology Sir Francis Avery Jones Research Medal

2007: Association of National European and Mediterranean Gastroenterology Societies (ASNEMGE) Rising Star prize.

2002: Wellcome Trust Advanced Clinical Fellowship

2002: Secretary of Gastroduodenal Committee and Member of Research Committee, British Society of Gastroenterology.

Member of editorial boards of Gut (from 2005).World Journal of Gastroenterology (from 2006), Therapeutic Advances in Gastroenterology (from 2008), American Journal of Physiology (from 2009).

Pritchard, D.M., Watson, A.J., Potten, C.S., Jackman, A.L. and Hickman, J.A. (1997) Inhibition by uridine but not thymidine of p53-dependent intestinal apoptosis initiated by 5-fluorouracil: evidence for the involvement of RNA perturbation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 94:1795-1799.

Pritchard, D.M., Potten, C.S. and Hickman, J.A. (1998) The relationships between p53-dependent apoptosis, inhibition of proliferation and 5-fluorouracil-induced histopathology in murine intestinal epithelia. Cancer Res. 58:5453-5465.

Pritchard, D.M., Potten, C.S., Korsmeyer, S.J., Roberts, S. and Hickman, J.A. (1999) Damage-induced apoptosis in intestinal epithelia from bcl-2-null and bax-null mice; investigations of the mechanistic determinants of epithelial apoptosis in vivo. Oncogene 18:7287-7293.

Pritchard, D.M., Print, C., O’Reilly, L., Adams J.M., Potten, C.S. and Hickman, J.A. (2000) Bcl-w is an important determinant of damage-induced apoptosis in epithelia of small and large intestine. Oncogene 19:3955-3959.

Ottewell, P.D., Watson, A.J.M., Wang, T.C., Varro, A., Dockray, G.J. and Pritchard, D.M. (2003) Progastrin stimulates murine colonic epithelial mitosis after DNA damage. Gastroenterology 124:1348-57.

Ottewell, P.D., Varro, A., Dockray, G.J., Kirton, C.M., Watson, A.J., Wang, T.C., Dimaline, R. and Pritchard, D.M. (2005) COOH-terminal 26-amino acid residues of progastrin are sufficient for stimulation of mitosis in murine colonic epithelium in vivo. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 288:G541-9.

Ottewell, P.D., Duckworth, C.A., Varro, A., Dimaline, R., Wang, T.C., Watson, A.J.M., Dockray, G.J. and Pritchard, D.M. (2006) Gastrin increases murine intestinal crypt regeneration following injury. Gastroenterology 130:1169-80.

Przemeck, S.M., Duckworth, C.A. and Pritchard, D.M. (2007) Radiation-induced gastric epithelial apoptosis occurs in the proliferative zone and is regulated by p53, bak, bax and bcl-2. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 292:G620-7.

Original articles since 1/1/08

Przemeck, S.M.C., Varro, A., Berry, D., Steele, I., Wang, T.C., Dockray, G.J., and Pritchard, D.M. (2008) Hypergastrinemia increase gastric epithelial susceptibility to apoptosis. Reg. Peptides 146: 147-56.

Nwosu, A.C., Jones, L., Vora, J., Poston, G.J., Vinjamuri, S. and Pritchard, D.M. (2008) Assessment of the efficacy and toxicity of 131I-metaiodobenzylguanidine therapy for metastatic neuroendocrine tumours. Br J Cancer 98:1053-8.

Kenny, S., Duval, C., Sammut, S.J., Steele, I., Pritchard, D.M., Argent, R.H., Dimaline, R., Dockray, G.J. and Varro, A. (2008) Increased expression of the urokinase plasminogen activator system by Helicobacter pylori in gastric epithelial cells. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 295:G431-41.

Pritchard, D.M., Berry, D., Przemeck, S.M., Campbell, F.C., Edwards, S.W. and Varro, A. (2008) Gastrin increases mcl-1 expression in type 1 gastric carcinoid tumors and a gastric epithelial cell line which expresses the CCK-2 receptor. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 295:G798-805.

Zheng, H., Pritchard, D.M., Yang, X., Bennett, E., Liu, G., Liu, C., Ai, W. (2009) KLF4 gene expression is inhibited by the Notch signaling pathway that controls goblet cell differentiation in mouse GI tract. Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol. 296:G490-8.

Duckworth, C.A. and Pritchard, D.M. Suppression of apoptosis, crypt hyperplasia and altered differentiation in the colonic epithelia of bak-null mice. Gastroenterology (2009) 136:943-52

Jin, G., Ramanathan, V., Quante, M., Baik, G.H., Yang, X., Wang, S.S., Tu, S., Gordon, S.A., Pritchard, D.M., Varro, A., Shulkes, A., Wang, T.C. (2009) Inactivating cholecystokinin-2 receptor inhibits progastrin-dependent colonic crypt fission, proliferation, and colorectal cancer in mice. J Clin Invest. 119:2691-701

Shibata, W., Takaishi, S., Muthupalani, S., Pritchard, D.M., Whary, M.T., Rogers, A.B., Fox, J.G., Betz, K.S., Kaestner, K.H., Karin, M., Wang, T.C. (2010) Conditional deletion of IkappaB-kinase-beta accelerates helicobacter-dependent gastric apoptosis, proliferation, and preneoplasia. Gastroenterology 138:1022-34

Review articles since 1/1/08

Burkitt, M.D., Varro, A., Pritchard, D.M. (2009) Importance of gastrin in the pathogenesis and treatment of gastric tumors. World J Gastroenterol. 15:1-16.

Murugesan, S.V., Varro, A., Pritchard, D.M. (2009) Review article: Strategies to determine whether hypergastrinaemia is due to Zollinger-Ellison syndrome rather than a more common benign cause. Aliment Pharmacol Ther.29:1055-68.

Musumba, C., Pritchard, D.M., Pirmohamed, M. (2009) Review article: Cellular and molecular mechanisms of NSAID-induced peptic ulceration. Aliment Pharmacol Ther. 30:517-31

	Biography	Role	Email	Telephone	Location
	Professor Mark Pritchard	Honorary Consultant Gastroenterologist		+44(0)151 794 5772	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
	Dr Carrie Duckworth	Postdoctoral Research Fellow		+44(0)151 794 6822	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
	Dr Mike Burkitt	WellcomeTrust Clinical Research Training Fellow		+44(0)151 794 6822	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
	Dr Shameena Bharucha	Clinical Research Fellow (NIHR PBRU)		+44(0)151 794 6822	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
	Dr Cris Musumba	Clinical Research Fellow		+44(0)151 794 6822	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
	Dr Senthil Murugesan	Clinical Research Fellow (NIHR PBRU)		+44(0)151 794 6822	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
	Dr Andy Moore	Clinical Research Fellow (NIHR PBRU)		+44(0)151 794 6822	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
	Dr Abdulwahab Abuderman	PhD Student		+44(0)151 794 6822	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
	Dr Abdalla Hanedi	PhD Student		+44(0)151 794 6822	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
	Mr Jonathan Williams	PhD Student		+44(0)151 794 6822	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
Administrative and Technical Staff
	Mrs Sue Courtney	PA to Professor Pritchard		+44(0)151 794 6822	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building
	Mr David Berry	Laboratory Technician		+44(0)151 794 6865	Gastroenterology Research Unit - Nuffield Building

Biography	Role	Email	Telephone	Location
Dr Stephen Royle	Group Leader		+44 (0)151 795 4984	Physiology - Nuffield Building
Fiona Hood	Cancer Research UK Postdoctoral Researcher		+44 (0)151 795 4983	Physiology - Nuffield Building
Anna Korniejewska	Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Researcher		+44 (0)151 795 4983	Physiology - Nuffield Building
Daniel Booth	Wellcome Trust PhD Student		+44 (0)151 795 4983	Physiology - Nuffield Building
Liam Cheeseman	Wellcome Trust PhD Student		+44 (0)151 795 4983	Physiology - Nuffield Building
Maria Blixt	Cancer Research UK Research Technician		+44 (0)151 795 4983	Physiology - Nuffield Building

Biography	Role	Email	Telephone	Location
Dr Ian Prior	Group Leader		+44(0)151 794 5332	Physiology - Nuffield Building
Maria Hernandez-Valladares	BBSRC Postdoctoral Researcher		+44(0)151 794 5310	Physiology - Nuffield Building
Veronica Aran	Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Researcher		+44(0)151 794 5310	Physiology - Nuffield Building
Jasminka Omerovic	NWCRF Postdoctoral Researcher		+44(0)151 794 5310	Physiology - Nuffield Building

Find a Researcher

The Centre brings together The University of Liverpool's basic and clinical scientists conducting dynamic interdisciplinary cancer research.

Centre Seminar Series

The Centre's seminars are held every Friday at 1pm in the Cancer Research UK Centre Lecture Theatre. All welcome to attend.

The calendar of events is regularly updated and is also available for download.

Forthcoming Guest Speakers

17th May 2012
Dr Kamil Kranc
University of Glasgow More...

18th May 2012
Dr Jason Parsons
Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, University of Oxford More...

25th May 2012, 1pm
Prof Graham Packham
Southampton University, More...

Postgraduate Programme

The University of Liverpool offers one of the best Ph.D. programmes in the U.K., and has been ranked 4th in a study of completion rates for Ph.D. students at universities by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).

Liverpool CRUK Centre Clinical Fellowship entry has closed for 2012

Centre Resources

lecture_theatre Development Fund.

Core Facilities:

- MISSION whole genome lentiviral shRNA library.

- Technology

- Medical Statistics & Bioinformatics

Donation Station Update

	Managers from local Cancer Research UK shops have been delighted to receive more than 513 bags worth
up to £15,390. Please keep your donations coming in so we can reach our new target of 350 bags. Collection points are in the Centre's foyer, Duncan Building, and the DSO office.

Patient and Public Involvement

Many patients and public members work with researcher professionals and clinicians (e.g. doctors, nurses) and get actively involved in the different stages of research and associated activities. Active involvement in clinical research is very different from being a participant in a study Find out more..

Username:
Password: