Simon Keller (Director)
Professor Simon Keller is Chair of Neuroimaging in the Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology (ISMIB) at the University of Liverpool. Simon has expertise in medical neuroimaging applications particularly, but not exclusively, in epilepsy and movement disorders. He has particular interest in how advanced imaging methods can be applied in neurological disorders to:
- provide insights into causative neurobiological mechanisms
- predict patient outcome after medical or surgical treatment
- further understand cognitive impairment
- help improve diagnostic assessments
Simon leads the Liverpool BRAIN lab, is involved in several research projects as PI or Co-I funded by national and international funding bodies, is a member of the Epilepsy Research UK Scientific Advisory Committee and elected Fellow of the Anatomical Society.
Email: simon.keller@liverpool.ac.uk
Staff webpage: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/translational-medicine/staff/simon-keller/
Christophe de Bezenac (Post-Doctoral Research Associate)
Dr Christophe de Bezenac is a Post-Doctoral Research Associate in ISMIB with an interest in the development and application of quantitative functional and diffusion MRI techniques to study brain-behaviour relationships in health and disease. Christophe is currently working on the MRC funded project “Brain connectivity at epilepsy diagnosis: markers of cognitive dysfunction and pharmacoresistance” and acquires data at LiMRIC and the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.
Email: cedb@liverpool.ac.uk
Guleed Adan (Clinical Research Fellow)
Dr Guleed Adan is an adult neurology specialist trainee at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust and a clinical research fellow in ISMIB. Guleed is working on the Association of British Neurologists and the Guarantors of Brain funded project “Predicting seizure recurrence following first unprovoked seizure”. Guleed is an aspiring epileptologist and has an interest in improving the early diagnosis of epilepsy and the development of multi-modal, non-invasive biomarkers to appropriately prognosticate and risk stratify patients following their first seizure. Guleed acquires data at LiMRIC and sees patients at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.
Email: guleed@liverpool.ac.uk
Nicola Leek (PhD Student, Research Assistant)
Nicola Leek is a part-time PhD student who is investigating the relationship between genomic risk factors and quantitative neuroimaging findings in people with epilepsy. She is also a part-time research assistant on the MRC funded project “Brain connectivity at epilepsy diagnosis: markers of cognitive dysfunction and pharmacoresistance” and acquires neuropsychological data in people with a new diagnosis of epilepsy. Nicola acquires data at LiMRIC for the MRC project and at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust for her PhD.
Email: nleek@liverpool.ac.uk
Andrea McKavanagh (PhD Student)
Andrea McKavanagh is a full-time PhD student working on an MRC DiMeN DTP funded project that focuses on the development of network imaging biomarkers of anti-epileptic drug treatment outcome in people with genetic generalised epilepsy. Andrea is applying network-based statistical, graph theoretical and machine learning approaches to DTI and resting-state fMRI data collected at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.
Email: A.Mckavanagh@liverpool.ac.uk
Ieva Andrulyte (PhD Student)
Ieva Andrulyte is a full-time PhD student working on an BBSRC DTP funded project that focuses on the development of network imaging biomarkers of cerebral language lateralisation in healthy people. Ieva is analysing MRI data acquired in Liverpool and from freely accessible imaging repositories, including the Human Connectome Project.
Email: Ieva.Andrulyte@liverpool.ac.uk
Corey Ratcliffe (PhD Student)
Corey Ratcliffe is a full-time PhD student working on an international PhD programme funded by the University of Liverpool and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), India. The project focuses on imaging biomarkers of seizure presentation in patients with neurocysticercosis. Corey will be acquiring data at NIMHANS.
Email: Corey.Ratcliffe@liverpool.ac.uk
Bethany Facer (Research Assistant, PhD Student)
Bethany is a full time PhD student working on an Anatomical Society funded studentship entitled “In-vivo dissection of white matter pathways in Parkinson’s disease: tracking progressive degeneration and biomarkers of treatment success”. Bethany will be acquiring data from the Parkinson’s Progressive Markers Initiative (PPMI) and the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.
Email: Bethany.Facer@liverpool.ac.uk
Luke Andrews (PhD Student)
Luke is a full-time PhD student working on an MRC DiMeN DTP iCase funded project entitled “Predicting motor impairment and neurosurgical treatment success in Parkinson’s disease using advanced neuroimaging techniques.” This project will be undertaken with support from Boston Scientific. Luke will be acquiring data from the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.
Cory Hooper (PhD Student)
Cory Hooper is a full-time PhD student working on the neuropsychological profiling and quantitative MRI analysis in patients with herpes simplex encephalitis. Much of Cory’s work is performed in context of the DexEnceph UK national trial.
Email: hlchoope@student.liverpool.ac.uk
Jamie Burgess (PhD Student)
Jamie Burgess is a full-time PhD student. Amongst several novel investigations, Jamie is using morphometric MRI and DTI approaches to identify brain neurodegeneration in patients with diabetes. An important goal of Jamie’s work is to determine if there is a relationship between retinal nerve thinning and quantitative measures of brain degeneration in these patients.
Email: Jamie.Burgess@liverpool.ac.uk
Arnas Tamasauskas (PhD Student)
Arnas Tamasauskas will join us in October 2022. His PhD will address the network-level development of chronic post-stroke pain using lesion mapping, connectomics and fMRI combined with detailed clinical assessment. It is hoped this will increase understanding of circuit-wide brain mechanisms and
delineate biomarkers of chronic post-stroke pain that are clinically informative with the potential to define more targeted, mechanism-based treatments to ameliorate and prevent pain.
Affiliated consultant neurologists
Tony Marson (Professor of Neurology)
Professor Tony Marson is Professor of Neurology in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, and honorary consultant neurologist at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust. His area of clinical expertise is epilepsy and has led several national and international randomised clinical trials. Professor Marson provides the foundation for almost all the imaging in epilepsy work performed in the BRAIN lab.
Email: A.G.Marson@liverpool.ac.uk
Staff webpage: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/systems-molecular-and-integrative-biology/staff/anthony-marson/
Antonella Macerollo (Consultant Neurologist and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer)
Dr Antonella Macerollo is a Consultant Neurologist at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust. Her area of clinical and academic expertise is movement disorders (especially Parkinson's Disease, Dystonia and Tourette's Syndrome) with specific focus on Deep Brain Stimulation. She was awarded her PhD entitled "The role of sensory afference in Parkinson's disease" in June 2018 at University College of London (Supervisors: Prof. Limousin and Prof. Keller). She is currently the Editor in Chief of the EANpage (the blog of the European Academy of Neurology).
Email: A.Macerollo@liverpool.ac.uk
Staff webpage: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/translational-medicine/staff/antonella-macerollo
Andrew Marshall (Senior Clinical Lecturer)
Andy Marshall is a Senior Lecturer in Pain Neuroscience in the Pain Research Institute and Institute of Life Course and Medical Science, University of Liverpool and honorary consultant in clinical neurophysiology at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust. His major areas of interest and expertise are the pathways, physiology and pathophysiology of pain and touch from the peripheral neuron to early cortical processing areas.
Email: andrew.Marshall@liverpool.ac.uk
Staff webpages: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/life-course-and-medical-sciences/staff/andrew-marshall/publications/
Affiliated consultant neuroradiologists
All our imaging work in patients with neurological disorders would not be possible without the support and collaboration of consultant neuroradiologists at the Department of Neuroradiology, Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr Kumar Das
Dr Shubhabrata Biswas
Dr Maneesh Bhojak
Affiliated consultant neurosurgeons
Our research work in epilepsy surgery and deep brain stimulation in movement disorders involves close collaboration with functional neurosurgeons at the Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust.
Mr Jibril Farah (Consultant Neurosurgeon)
Lab Alumni
Barbara Kreilkamp
- PhD student 2014-2017
- Post-Doctoral Research Associate 2018-2020
Lorna Bryant
- PhD Student 2016-2021
Yachin Chen
- PhD Student 2016-2021
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