Stamataki Lab

The Stamataki Lab is located at the Centre for Liver and Gastrointestinal Research (CLGR), University of Birmingham. See our latest lab news here.

We are fascinated by the intricate architecture of the liver and we are investigating how cells of the immune system influence and are influenced by the liver microenvironment.

Our lab uses cell biology, immunology and virology experiments to understand and quantify interactions between immune cells and liver resident cells. We build models to manipulate these interactions using human tissues and we test novel drug candidate molecules, in collaboration with industrial partners.

We are based at the Centre for Liver and Gastrointestinal Research CLGR, which is part of the Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy.

We investigate children’s liver disease in a project funded by Birmingham Children’s Hospital Research Foundation charity, in collaboration with:

• Consultant Paediatric Hepatologist and Founding Director of Birmingham Children’s Hospital’s Liver Unit Professor Deirdre Kelly,
• Consultant histopathologist Dr Rachel Brown.

Liver disease kills more people than diabetes and road accidents combined, and deaths due to liver disease are projected to rise over the coming years (see report by the British Liver Trust, and UK perspective at the Lancet). We aim to understand how to reduce immune mediated liver damage in order to identify new cellular and molecular targets for therapeutic interventions.

Donated liver explants are vital for our research, which would not be possible without the consent of patients that undergo life-saving operations at the Queen Elizabeth hospital transplant unit. What is it like to be listed for transplantation? Alan Hyde discusses his experience here.