John F Dillon

Biography

Prof John Dillon is Professor of Hepatology and Gastroenterology, in the School of Medicine, Ninewells Hospital, University of Dundee, as well as being an honorary consultant with NHS Tayside, leading a busy general hepatology service and a research group. He is also clinical lead for Blood Borne Viruses in Tayside. He was a NHS consultant Physician, Gastroenterologist and Hepatologist in Tayside for over 10 years, prior to his move to the University of Dundee.  He chairs the Scottish HCV action plan clinical leads group and is a member of the ministerial advisory group for sexual health and blood borne viruses, as well as chairing the Scottish Liver Diagnostic Care Pathway Steering Group on behalf of Scottish Government. Previously he chaired the testing treatment and care working group of phase 1 of the Scottish Government HCV action Plan and the Hepatitis C SIGN guideline development group. He graduated in Medicine from St George’s Hospital Medical School, University of London, and subsequently gained his MD based on research performed in the University of Edinburgh while a lecturer in Gastroenterology and Hepatology. 

Research Interest

He is a translational researcher, taking clinical problems back and forth across the scientific-clinical interface, looking for solutions. The agenda for this has been defined by the clinical problems faced within clinical practice as a Hepatologist and gastroenterologist. These problems are abnormal liver function tests, Non-alcoholic Fatty liver disease, Hepatitis C and Barrett’s Oesophagus. The common theme within these problems is the pathway of care, identifying those patients who need treatment and bringing that treatment to them, be that looking for new diagnostics, new treatments or new ways of working. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (often associated with obesity or diabetes), affects more than 20% of the Scottish population. The team believe the underlying mechanism of pathogenesis is a failure to adapt to oxidative stress, a classic polygenetic and environmental interaction. They are using proteomic and genomic technologies to generate biomakers for diagnosis and staging of NAFLD, but also to give insights into relevant pathways, This feeds into the pathway based research in collaboration with Profs John Hayes and Mike Ashford looking at the master regulator of the initial cellular oxidative stress response Nrf-2, knock out models of this gene being very susceptible to developing the NASH phenotype. The combination of these approaches harnessing the different skills and talents of the researchers is key to bringing about the translation of the discoveries into the therapeutic arena. To put NAFLD in a population context, the group created ELDIT (Epidemiology of liver disease in Tayside). A grant funded project in collaboration with Prof Peter Donnan using electronic case record and data linkage to diagnose liver disease, estimate its epidemiology and plot its progression on a population basis. This was the first time this has been done for all the diseases of a whole organ system. This led to a project funded by the HTA NHS R&D investigating the natural history of abnormal LFTS in the Tayside population, which has led to the creation of a database of 99,000 patients with 2million LFTs followed for 15 years, this is leading to a decision support tool for the investigation of LFTs for GPs based on the database, which the Biomarkers can be integrated into. This is now being used to create a new diagnostic pathway for liver disease across Scotland. Hepatitis C Research in HCV has been built bottom up from the local, to national and now international projects, becoming a recognized centre of excellence. Innovative clinical practice around pathways to diagnosis and treatment, has led to several papers, multiple national and international  lecture invitations and our model of care has been adopted across Scotland and in many parts of the UK.  As a result of the reputation gained by this work the team was invited to help establish a UK wide HCV research resource, the aim was to establish a UK bio-repository for HCV research that would become the focus for UK HCV research both for basic science and clinical work. This has now been developed into a consortium of over 40 academic institutions and has been funded by the medical research foundation. The group are also part of the STOPHCV consortium. They also have an active program of clinical trials of HCV therapy with Pharma.  Barrett’s Oesophagus The current research focusses on investigating the novel bacteria we have detected on Barrett’s mucosa and evaluating its role in disease progression.  Grants and Research Funding Dr Dillon’s total research grant income jointly obtained with clinical and scientific colleagues locally and in collaboration with other institutions is over £13.4 million, with £9.7 million associated with currently active projects. In addition there have been considerable funds generated by commercial clinical research for both the NHS and University. Funding bodies include the MRC, the Medical Research Foundation, the CSO, HTA and the Department of Trade and Industry, Technology Strategy Board, Tenovus, British Liver Trust, other charities and various industry supported grants.