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Gordon Moran

Clinical Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences

Contact

  • workRoom D1406 West Block, Queen's Medical Centre , University of Nottingham
    Queen's Medical Centre
    Nottingham
    NG7 2UH
    UK
  • work+44 (0)115 9249924 ext 70608
  • fax0115 (82) 31409

Biography

Dr Moran is an academic gastroenterologist with a special interest in the clinical management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. He has completed his gastroenterology training in Birmingham, UK and his PhD studies with Professor John Mclaughlin at the University of Manchester in 2011. He advanced his clinical training in Inflammatory Bowel disease by undertaking a one year advanced clinical fellowship in Inflammatory Bowel disease at the University of Calgary, Canada under the supervision of Professor Remo Panaccione. He has been appointed as an Associate Professor in Gastroenterology at the University of Nottingham in 2013. Since then, his primary research aim is investigating the altered whole body physiology (eating behaviour, gut motility and altered muscle physiology) in Crohn's patients as well optimising new MRI techniques for measuring disease active and disease burden in IBD. In collaboration with the Stem Cell group at the University of Nottingham he is piloting some early stem cell platforms in modelling IBD. He is presently funded through the BROAD Medical Research Program, CORE Research Charity, Crohn's and Colitis UK, The Medical Research Council, The Wellcome Trust, Nottingham University Hospitals Charity and the NIHR. He presently supervises 6 PhD students, 1 MSc student amd 1 IBD clinical research Fellow.

He is presently involved in a large number of randomised controlled trials in IBD both as a principal applicant or a co-applicant. Dr Moran is academic and clinical IBD theme lead within the NIHR Nottingham Digestive Diseases Biomedical Research Unit. He is Academic Program Director for Gastroenterology for the Nottingham Digestive Disease Centre, IBD Clinical Research Group Member Committee member for the British Society of Gastroenterology and an IBD expert member for the National Institute of Health Research Trent Clinical Research Network.

Expertise Summary

Dr Moran is an academic gastroenterologist with a special interest in the clinical management of Inflammatory Bowel Disease. His primary research aim is investigating the altered whole body physiology (eating behaviour, gut motility and altered muscle physiology) in Crohn's patients as well optimising new MRI techniques for measuring disease active and disease burden in IBD. In collaboration with the Stem Cell group at the University of Nottingham he is piloting some early stem cell platforms in modelling IBD. He has been involved in a large number of randomised controlled trials in IBD both as a principal applicant or a co-applicant. He has expertise in observational studies aimed at identifying clinical biomarkers that predict response to medical treatment.

Teaching Summary

Dr Moran is the academic training lead at the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre overseeing the postgraduate training of a large number of clinical and non-clinical academic students. he is… read more

Research Summary

Dr Gordon Moran has recently joined the group in a capacity of Clinical Associate Professor. He sub-specialises in Inflammatory Bowel Disease after undergoing advanced training in Calgary, Canada.

  1. Gut-brain axis (in collaboration with Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, SPMIC at UoN)

This project is funded by the BROAD Research Foundation (U.S.) and the Medical Research Council (UK). The aim of the project is to describe a) in detail the eating behaviour of patients with active small and large bowel Crohn's disease and b) dissect the exact role of GI peptides in the altered appetite witnessed in active IBD using fMRI to investigate the CNS response to a standard test meal.

  1. Gut motility (in collaboration with SPMIC)

This program of work is presently funded by Nottingham University Hospitals Charity, The University of Kuwait and the National Institute of Health Research and the MRC (UK) through a large collaborative UK fund. This project has 2 main aims: a) investigate the link between intestinal inflammation, altered postprandial GI peptide response and small bowel dysmotility and b) validate the role of small bowel motility as a new MR biomarker of disease activity.

  1. Novel MRI techniques (in collaboration with SPMIC)

These are new studies funded by the MRC (UK), self-funded PhD studentships and the Haydn Green Foundation started in January 2017. These projects will investigate new MR-based techniques to better quantify the disease state of perianal and luminal Crohn's disease. The ultimate aim of these studies are improve disease characterisation in Crohn's disease.

  1. Sarcopenia, metabolic flexibility and IBD Fatigue (In collaboration with MRC/ARUK Centre for Musculoskeletal Ageing Research Group at UoN)

This project is presently funded through the CORE research charity. Crohn's and Colitis UK, the Joan Browne Legacy and Nottingham University Hospitals Charity. The main aims of the project are: a) identify the exact aetiology of: a) sarcopenia in IBD and b) IBD fatigue.

  1. Disease modelling (In collaboration with the Stem Cell Group at UoN)

Personalising CD management by being able to predict successful and precise medical therapies in individual patients would improve patient outcomes. Recent advances in adult stem cell biology have made it possible to culture large numbers of healthy human intestinal organoids and enteroids. The aim of this project is to further develop a human enteroid platform to model CD and better understand the inflammatory response of CD intestinal epithelium. This pilot work is now funded through the Wellcome Seed Awards.

6. Dr Moran is an investigator on the NIHR/MRC funded ASTIC-lite tril investigating autologous stem cell transplantation in refractory Crohn's disease as well as a principal or co-investigator in a large number of pharmaceutical phase I-III trials.

Dr Moran is an Inflammatory Bowel Disease expert member of the National Institute of Health Research Trent Clinical Research Network and the British Society of Gastroenterology, Clinical Research Group Committee. Dr Moran is an expert reviewer for the Journal of Crohn's and Colitis, British Journal of Nutrition, Inflammatory Bowel disease Journal, Expert reviews in Gastroenterology and Hepatology journal, the International Journal of Obesity and the Annals of Nutritional Disorders and Therapy, the NIHR, the Medical Research Council and the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research.

Selected Publications

Dr Moran is the academic training lead at the NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre overseeing the postgraduate training of a large number of clinical and non-clinical academic students. he is as well Academic Program Director for the Nottingham Digestive Diseases Centre

He presently supervises 6 PhD students, 1 MSc student and 1 IBD fellow.

He is routinely invited to speak in MRCP, MSc course and medical postgraduate teaching days on IBD-related themes. He is invited at a guest speaker to a large number of IBD meetings.

He was course director for Nottingham IBD masterclass (Feb 2015, Nov 2017) and the FALK IBD/liver symposium at Nottingham on the 20th November 2015.

Past Research

Enteroendocrine peptides in Crohn's disease. This was the preliminary work which has served as ground to our present research theme. This published work has shown an increase in tissue and postprandial plasma levels in key enteroendocrine peptides. These findings correlated to key patient symptoms.

During my time as an Advanced IBD Fellow in Calgary, CANADA, I have undertaken a number of medium-large cohort studies identifying clinical biomarkers that predict patient outcomes after medical therapy.

Future Research

Future research will be mostly themed around:

1. Identifying pharmacological modulators of biomarkers EC peptides that present research might identify as key in the eating behaviour in inflammatory bowel disease. This work will run in parallel in our gut motility program.

2. Treating the altered muscle physiology in IBD.

3. Improve MRI techniques in the measurement of disease activity and disease burden in IBD.

4. Stem cell modelling in IBD as a platform for pharmacological pre-clinical screening

The IBD group at Nottingham will retain its activity in population-based studies in IBD and will continue to design and undertake investigator and pharma-led phase I-IV IBD studies.

School of Medicine

University of Nottingham
Medical School
Nottingham, NG7 2UH

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