Rachel Guest
Consultant Hepatobiliary Surgeon & Wellcome Career Development Fellow
Rachel is interested in mutations in Isocitrate Dehydrogenase genes, IDH1 and IDH2. These are some of the most commonly observed mutations found in Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma (ICC), and yet the mechanisms through which they drive cancer formation are not fully understood. Her lab work focuses on the generation of novel models of IDH-mutated CCA and understanding how these interact with other mutations, as well as their role in liver injury and repair processes. Rachel splits her time between lab research and an active clinical practice in hepatopancreatobiliary surgery at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. She is committed to undertaking clinically relevant research that places patients’ priorities at the forefront of the lab’s research questions.
Caitlin McCaffrey
Melville Trust PhD Fellow and Research Associate
Caitlin’s work focuses on liver cell plasticity and how the potential for cells to undergo cell fate transitioning varies across the zones of the liver lobule. She has developed functional in vitro 3-dimensional platforms and transgenic models to study how the effects of drivers of liver cell transdifferentiation depend on the local cellular and molecular contexts in which these signals are received. She hopes to better understand how mechanisms such as these that underpin the remarkable regenerative plasticity of the liver are aberrantly recruited to drive liver cancers, particularly cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer).