Staff Profile
Dr Lee Borthwick
Senior Lecturer
- Email: lee.borthwick@ncl.ac.uk
- Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 3112
- Personal Website:
- Address: Fibrosis Research Group,
Bioscience Institute,
4th Floor, William Leech Building,
Medical School,
Framlington Place,
缅北禁地,
缅北禁地-upon-Tyne
NE2 4HH
I completed my PhD at the and joined 缅北禁地 in 2005 working as a Research Associate in the Lung Immunobiology Research Group under the supervision of PIs and . In 2011 I was awarded a and spent 2 years working in the laboratory of at the in Bethesda. Upon returning to 缅北禁地 I was appointed to a University Research Fellowship role and provided dedicated laboratory space and support to conduct my research. I was promoted to a Lecturer in Fibrosis Biology in 2017 and a Senior Lecturer in Fibrosis Biology in 2019.
My research primarily focuses on understanding the role of fibroblast plasticity in driving/resolving inflammation and fibrosis in the lung, liver and heart. To achieve this goal my laboratory combines in vivo mouse models with the use of precision cut slices (PCS) prepared from human tissue and ex-vivo cultures of human epithelial cells and fibroblasts. The use of human tissue and cells is helping us to develop new robust laboratory models to study fibrosis that are more relevant to human disease. Research in my laboratory is funded by an MRC MICA Programme Grant (in collaboration with GSK), an ESF grant from Pfizer (in collaboration with Edinburgh University) and Duchenne UK.
Area of expertise: inflammation, fibrosis, fibroblasts, lung, liver, heart
Google Scholar:
Education
- PhD Studentship - Identification of novel protein complexes associated with CFTR at the plasma membrane of epithelial cells - University of Sheffield (2002-2005).
- BSc Cell Biology - Collingwood College, Durham University - 1999-2002.
Selected Presentations
- Keystone Symposia - Fibrosis and Tissue Repair - A Bioreactor Technology for Modelling Fibrosis in Human and Rodent Precision-Cut Liver Slices
- 4th Annual NASH Summit - Keeping up with the Joneses: What can we learn from pulmonary and cardiac fibrosis?
- 3rd International Conference on Tissue Repair, Regeneration, and Fibrosis - Modulation of fibroblast phenotypes as a novel therapeutic target for IPF
- Anti-Fibrotic Drug Development Summit - Next Generation In-Vitro Models
- 2nd International Conference on Tissue Repair, Regeneration, and Fibrosis - Fibroblasts drive inflammation and monocyte recruitment in damaged tissue via an IL-1R1/JunD/CCL2 dependant signalling pathway
- International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation - Mechanisms of chronic lung allograft rejection
- First International Conference on Tissue Repair, Regeneration, and Fibrosis - Investigating the role of FPR-1 in multi-organ fibrosis
Selected Funding
- Paish H, Reed L, Brown H, Bryan M, Govaere O, Leslie J, Barksby B, GarciaMacia M, Watson A, Xu X, Zaki M, Greaves L, Whitehall J, French J, White S, Manas D, Robinson S, Spoletini G, Griffiths C, Mann DA, Borthwick LA, Drinnan M, Mann J, Oakley F. . Hepatology 2019, 70(4), 1377-1391.
- Moles A, Sanchez AM, Banks PS, Murphy LB, Luli S, Borthwick L, Fisher A, O'Reilly S, van Laar JM, White SA, Perkins ND, Burt AD, Mann DA, Oakley F. . Hepatology 2013, 57(2), 817-828.