Professor of Gastrointestinal Genetics

 

 

Contact details:

Tel:	+44 20 7882 2330
Fax:	+44 20 7882 2194
Email:	d.vanheel@qmul.ac.uk
Address:	Centre for Digestive Diseases, Blizard Institute of Cell and Molecular Science, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, The Blizard Building, 4 Newark Street, Whitechapel, London E1 2AT, United Kingdom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See also - van Heel group webpage: Coeliac disease genetics research

 

Biography

I did a Natural Sciences BA at Cambridge University in 1990 and completed Clinical Medicine training at University of Oxford in 1993. A Medical Research Council Clinical Training Fellowship led to a DPhil from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford in 2002. I was a Wellcome Trust Clinician Scientist Fellow at Imperial College London from 2002 to 2006. I completed specialist medical training as a Consultant in Gastroenterology in 2004.

In 2006, I was appointed to Professor of Gastrointestinal Genetics at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, and Honorary Consultant Gastroenterologist at Barts and the London NHS Trust.

My main clinical and research focus is coeliac disease and Crohn's disease, with a more general interest in the ‘autoimmune’ diseases.

I was awarded the 2009 Sir Francis Avery Jones Research Award by the British Society of Gastroenterology.

 

Research Activity

My main research interests are the genetic causes of coeliac disease and Crohn's disease, and the functional/immunological consequences of these genetic variants on human biology.

Achievements include:

•  Demonstrating that Crohn's disease associated NOD2 variants are loss of function in human cells (2005).

•  Performing the first genome wide association study in coeliac disease, identifying variants in the IL2-IL21 region (2007).

•  Identifying a further seven coeliac disease associated gene regions (2008). Interestingly many regions are shared with other autoimmune diseases (e.g. type 1 diabetes, 2008), mostly with the same SNP allele but in some cases a different SNP or with the alternate SNP allele.

• Establishing high-throughput sequencing at the Barts and The London Genome Centre (2008/9).

• Developing a new method to understand the function of disease associated genetic variants: high throughput Illumina GAII sequencing for allele specific expression (2009). As proof of principle, we show that multiple sclerosis risk variants in CD6 alter the level of CD6 expression.

Currently my group is funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, and supported by Coeliac UK.

Key Publications

• Heap GA, Yang JH, Downes K, Healy BC, Hunt KA, Bockett N, Franke L, Dubois PC, Mein CA, Dobson RJ, Albert TJ, Rodesch MJ, Clayton DG, Todd JA, van Heel DA*, Plagnol V*.  Genome-wide analysis of allelic expression imbalance in human primary cells by high throughput transcriptome resequencing. Human Molecular Genetics 2009 Oct 13. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 19825846

•  Smyth DJ, Plagnol V, Walker NM, Cooper JD, Downes K, Yang JH, Howson JM, Stevens H, McManus R, Wijmenga C, Heap GA, Dubois PC, Clayton DG, Hunt KA, van Heel DA, Todd JA. Shared and distinct genetic variants in type 1 diabetes and celiac disease. New England Journal of Medicine 2008 Dec 25;359(26):2767-77. PubMed PMID: 19073967

•  Hunt KA, Zhernakova A, Turner G, Heap GA, Franke L, Bruinenberg M, Romanos J, Dinesen LC, Ryan AW, Panesar D, Gwilliam R, Takeuchi F, McLaren WM, Holmes GK, Howdle PD, Walters JR, Sanders DS, Playford RJ, Trynka G, Mulder CJ, Mearin ML, Verbeek WH, Trimble V, Stevens FM, O'Morain C, Kennedy NP, Kelleher D, Pennington DJ, Strachan DP, McArdle WL, Mein CA, Wapenaar MC, Deloukas P, McGinnis R, McManus R, Wijmenga C, van Heel DA. Newly identified genetic risk variants for celiac disease related to the immune response.  Nature Genetics 2008 Apr;40(4):395-402. PubMed PMID: 18311140

•  Franke L, de Kovel CG, Aulchenko YS, Trynka G, Zhernakova A, Hunt KA, Blauw HM, van den Berg LH, Ophoff R, Deloukas P, van Heel DA, Wijmenga C. Detection, imputation, and association analysis of small deletions and null alleles on oligonucleotide arrays.  American Journal of Human Genetics2008 Jun;82(6):1316-33. PubMed PMID: 18519066

•  Henderson KN, Tye-Din JA, Reid HH, Chen Z, Borg NA, Beissbarth T, Tatham A, Mannering SI, Purcell AW, Dudek NL, van Heel DA , McCluskey J, Rossjohn J, Anderson RP. A structural and immunological basis for the role of human leukocyte antigen DQ8 in celiac disease.  Immunity 2007 Jul;27(1):23-34. PubMed PMID: 17629515

•  van Heel DA, Franke L, Hunt KA, Gwilliam R, Zhernakova A, Inouye M, Wapenaar MC, Barnardo MC, Bethel G, Holmes GK, Feighery C, Jewell D, Kelleher D, Kumar P, Travis S, Walters JR, Sanders DS, Howdle P, Swift J, Playford RJ, McLaren WM, Mearin ML, Mulder CJ, McManus R, McGinnis R, Cardon LR, Deloukas P, Wijmenga C. A genome-wide association study for celiac disease identifies risk variants in the region harboring IL2 and IL21.  Nature Genetics 2007 Jul;39(7):827-9. PubMed PMID: 17558408

•  Anderson RP, van Heel DA, Tye-Din JA, Barnardo M, Salio M, Jewell DP, Hill AV. T cells in peripheral blood after gluten challenge in coeliac disease.  Gut2005 Sep;54(9):1217-23. PubMed PMID: 16099789

•  van Heel DA, Ghosh S, Butler M, Hunt KA, Lundberg AM, Ahmad T, McGovern DP, Onnie C, Negoro K, Goldthorpe S, Foxwell BM, Mathew CG, Forbes A, Jewell DP, Playford RJ. Muramyl dipeptide and toll-like receptor sensitivity in NOD2-associated Crohn's disease.  Lancet 2005 May 21-27;365(9473):1794-6. PubMed PMID: 15910952

•  van Heel DA, Fisher SA, Kirby A, Daly MJ, Rioux JD, Lewis CM; Genome Scan Meta-Analysis Group of the IBD International Genetics Consortium. Inflammatory bowel disease susceptibility loci defined by genome scan meta-analysis of 1952 affected relative pairs. Human Molecular Genetics2004;13:763-70. PubMed PMID: 14976156

>> Publications since 2001

 

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