Professor Jonathan Fallowfield

Translational Liver Research

Jonathan Fallowfield is a clinician-scientist focused on liver research, working to turn scientific discoveries into real-world tests and treatments for patients. His work bridges the gap between medical research and patient care, finding practical solutions to clinical challenges. He works closely with industry, charities, patients, and the public to bring new ideas to life.

Professor Jonathan Fallowfield

Personal Chair of Translational Liver Research; Honorary Consultant Hepatologist

  • Centre for Inflammation Research

Contact details

Group Members

Ailish McCafferty-Brown, MRC-funded Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Sarah Morel, MRC-funded PhD in Precision Medicine (primary supervisor)

Maria Jimenez Ramos, GSK-funded Postdoctoral Researcher (on secondment)

Angus Jacobs, British Heart Foundation-funded PhD (co-supervisor)

Monika Selvakumar, EASTBIO-funded PhD (co-supervisor)

Pei-Chi Huang, Taiwan Ministry of Education Scholarship PhD (co-supervisor)

Anagha Chandran, Infection Medicine (Biomedical Sciences) PhD (co-supervisor)

Paul Brennan, Clinical Research Fellow/MD (co-supervisor)

Research interests

I am Personal Chair of Translational Liver Research at the University of Edinburgh and Honorary Consultant Hepatologist at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.  During medical training in Southampton, I undertook an intercalated BSc focused on mechanisms of liver inflammation and a PhD (supervised by Professor John Iredale) investigating the reversibility of liver fibrosis as an MRC Clinical Research Training Fellow.  I relocated to Edinburgh in 2008 as an Academy of Medical Sciences/Health Foundation Clinician Scientist Fellow determined to tackle the major unmet clinical need in hepatology for robust non-invasive biomarkers and effective treatments for patients with chronic liver disease.  In 2014, I was awarded an NHS Research Scotland/Universities Senior Clinical Fellowship.  My research interests span basic science and translational/clinical studies in hepatology. Key topics include mechanisms of liver fibrogenesis and fibrosis regression; portal hypertension and acute kidney injury; biomarkers (particularly imaging); and discovery/development of novel therapies for liver fibrosis, fatty liver, and portal hypertension.

Key projects

I have a successful track-record in translating scientific advances from bench-to-bedside and collaborating with Industry. A key exemplar is providing preclinical proof-of-concept for human-2 relaxin as an antifibrotic and vasoactive treatment in cirrhosis, then leading a Novartis sponsored Phase 2 randomized trial of serelaxin in human cirrhosis (NCT01640964) and an investigator-initiated Phase 2 trial of serelaxin in portal hypertension: 'Serelaxin To Lower Portal Pressure in Patients with Cirrhosis and Portal Hypertension (STOPP)' (NCT02669875). 

In 2014 I was awarded a prestigious GSK Discovery Partnership with Academia (DPAc) to discover a small-molecule agonist of the relaxin receptor. Collaborative work spanning two decades has definitively established macrophages as key players in the progression and regression of liver fibrosis, leading to a Phase 1/2 cell therapy trial for which I was a co-I: 'Autologous Macrophage Therapy for Liver Cirrhosis (MATCH)' (ISRCTN 103680500).

MATCH study - IRR News article

I am now the CI for ‘An Open-label Phase 1/2 Multicentre Study to Evaluate the Safety, Tolerability and Efficacy of RTX001 Autologous Macrophages in Participants with Liver Cirrhosis who have Hepatic Decompensation (EMERALD)’. My interest in advanced therapies is also evidenced by membership of the CSO-funded Centre for Precision Cell Therapy for the Liver (PRaCTicAL).

PRaCTicAL website

I have a strong interest in developing innovative biomarkers in liver disease including breathomics and multiparametric liver MRI (co-PI for two Innovate UK grants totaling ~£2.3M: ‘LiverMultiscan with MRI – replacing liver biopsy’ and 'HepaT1ca: Quantifying Liver Health in Surgical Candidates for Liver Malignancies' (NCT03213314). 

I was clinical lead for a £1.7M Innovate UK precision medicine project: ‘SteatoSITE: An Integrated Gene-To-Patient Data Commons for NAFLD Research and a €748,742 Innovate UK EUREKA project: 'Development of an INTEgrated PREcision AI Tool for the stratification of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (INTErPRET-NAFLD)'.

I am also a co-I in a 17-partner, 6-country Horizon Europe-funded consortium (Halt-RONIN) to discover chronic inflammation biomarkers that define key stages in the Healthy-to-NASH (non-alcoholic steatohepatitis) transition to inform early prevention and treatment strategies.

Halt-RONIN website

Key publications

  1. Sugimoto A et al. Hepatic stellate cells control liver zonation, size and functions via R-spondin 3. Nature. 2025 Mar 12. doi: 10.1038/s41586-025-08677-w.
  2. Brennan PN et al. A multicentre, open-label, parallel-group, phase 2, randomized controlled trial of autologous macrophage therapy for liver cirrhosis. Nat Med. 2025 Jan 10. doi: 10.1038/s41591-024-03406-8.
  3. Perry AS et al. A prognostic molecular signature of hepatic steatosis is spatially heterogeneous and dynamic in human liver. Cell Rep Med. 2024 Dec 17;5(12):101871. doi: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2024.101871
  4. Kendall TJ et al. Outcome prediction in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease using stain-free digital pathological assessment. Liver Int. 2024 Aug 7. doi: 10.1111/liv.16062.
  5. Kendall TJ et al. An integrated gene-to-outcome multimodal database for metabolic dysfunction- associated steatotic liver disease. Nat Med. 2023 Nov;29(11):2939-2953. doi: 10.1038/s41591-023-02602-2.
  6. Carlessi R et al. Single-nucleus RNA sequencing of pre-malignant liver reveals disease-associated hepatocyte state with HCC prognostic potential. Cell Genom. 2023 Apr 13;3(5):100301. doi: 10.1016/j.xgen.2023.100301.
  7. Ramachandran P et al. Nature. 2019 Nov;575(7783):512-518. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1631-3.
  8. Moroni F et al. Safety profile of autologous macrophage therapy for liver cirrhosis. Nat Med. 2019 Oct;25(10):1560-1565. doi: 10.1038/s41591-019-0599-8.
  9. Poole R et al. Coffee consumption and health: umbrella review of meta-analyses of multiple health outcomes. BMJ. 2017 Nov 22;359:j5024. doi: 10.1136/bmj.j5024.
  10. Snowdon VK et al. Serelaxin as a potential treatment for renal dysfunction in cirrhosis: Preclinical evaluation and results of a randomized phase 2 trial. PLoS Med. 2017 Feb 28;14(2):e1002248. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1002248.

Media and engagement

A profile feature in Edinburgh Innovation's 'Inspirational Innovators' web stories:

Jonathan Fallowfield profile - Edinburgh Innovations website

Inaugural Lecture - University of Edinburgh, 2021-2022:

Watch 'Scar Wars: from padawan to professor' inaugural lecture

Collaborators

Internal

Prof Tim Kendall

Prof Stuart Forbes

Prof Prakash Ramachandran

Dr Lucia Bandiera

Prof David Hay

Prof Neil Carragher

Prof Keisuke Kaji

Prof Ruth Andrew

Prof Peter Hayes

Prof John Plevris

Prof Anura Rambukkana

Prof Neil Henderson

External

Prof Neil Guha, University of Nottingham

Prof Graeme Milligan, University of Glasgow

Dr Hamish Innes, Glasgow Caledonian University

Prof Ewan Forrest, University of Glasgow

Dr David Blane, University of Glasgow

Dr Ruairi Lynch, University of Dundee

Dr Lenny Nelson, Napier University

Dr Ignat Drozdov, Bering Ltd

Prof Quentin Anstee, Newcastle University

Prof Nina Tirnitz-Parker, Curtin University

Prof Robert Schwabe, Columbia University

Prof Xiaolong Qi, Southeast University

Prof Ravi Shah, Vanderbilt University

Funders

Medical Research Council

Horizon Europe

GlaxoSmithKline

Scottish Funding Council

Chief Scientist Office

National Institute for Health and Care Research

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