Abstract
Q Dr Thursz, can you tell us a little about your professional background to date? I initially trained in internal medicine and gastroenterology. I was given the opportunity to train in Hepatology at St Mary’s Hospital in 1990 by Prof Howard Thomas, who at that time was very active in the field of viral hepatitis and had also set up a liver transplant program. I undertook research at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School which subsequently became Imperial College between 1991 and 1994 studying immunogenetics of hepatitis B virus infection. I was fortunate enough to collaborate with Prof Adrian Hill from Oxford, which resulted in a number of high-impact publications on genetic susceptibility in hepatitis B virus infection [1–4]. I became lecturer and then senior lecturer at Imperial, working mostly on genetic susceptibility in viral hepatitis but also studying the natural history of hepatitis C virus infection. In 2002, I became secretary of the British Association for Study of the Liver, a position I held for 3 years. On the retirement of Prof Thomas in 2011, I was appointed head of the Section of Hepatology and Gastroenterology at Imperial College. In 2009, I was elected to the Governing Board of the European Association for Study of the Liver (EASL) as Vice-Secretary, and from 2011 to 2013 I served as SecretaryGeneral of EASL. My department is involved in a wide range of basic, translational and clinical research in liver disease. We have participated in many of the recent Phase II and III trials of direct acting antivirals for hepatitis C virus infection. I have just completed a large trial of treatment for alcoholic hepatitis evaluating the role of steroids and pentoxifylline.
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