Joachim Hanna awarded Guts UK/ Dr Falk Prize

Joachim Hanna was awarded the Medical Student Prize for an essay describing his research project, which investigated the intestinal inflammation in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).

His project, entitled ‘Hedgehog Signalling Controls Th17 Differentiation to Drive Intestinal Inflammation and is a Druggable Target in the Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease’ was carried out at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute at the University of Cambridge whilst studying for a PhD in Immunology as part of a MB/PhD Programme.

Hanna was presented with his award and £1,000 prize at the annual meeting of the British Gastroenterology Society (BSG) on Tuesday June 21^st. The ceremony took place during a special dinner at the Raddison Blu Hotel in Birmingham, with the awards presented by the Chair of the BSG and attended by other illustrious names in gastroenterology medicine along with the CEO of Guts UK.

The Dr Falk Pharma/Guts UK Awards are dedicated to encouraging research and promoting patient care in the field of gastroenterology and hepatology. Since 2007 they have rewarded over 120 dedicated young health care professionals, including medical students, junior doctors, nurses and dietitians.

Joachim Hanna said “The burden of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is enormous and is rapidly rising, with the annual global burden of IBD estimated at over one million years lived with disability. There has been a great push to understand the cellular and molecular features that are specifically dysregulated in IBD, in order to develop novel targeted therapeutics. My PhD project focussed on the role of an ancient signalling pathway, the so-called ‘Hedgehog pathway’, in T cell function. I was particularly interested in this pathway since it is highly druggable, and Hedgehog inhibitors are already in use in the clinic as anti-cancer drugs. This work raises the possibility of repurposing existing Hedgehog inhibitors to provide a novel targeted therapy in the treatment of IBD.

“Receiving a Guts UK/Dr. Falk Essay Prize is a tremendous honour. I am deeply grateful to both my supervisor and fellow lab colleagues for their continuous support. Working on this project has been such an amazing opportunity and has cemented my goal to combine my research and clinical interests as an academic gastroenterologist”

Dr Maike de la Roche, Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute said “Joachim has been an excellent student whose outstanding competence and work ethic has led to two excellent pieces of research work with high translational relevance in my laboratory.

“Joachim was the driving force behind his projects and came up with many new ideas, he stayed on top of the literature and readily incorporated new perspectives and methodologies into his research. He worked independently and in addition to his intellectual brilliance, he was a kind and considerate member of the team.”