Staff Profile
Abdullah Malik
Training Fellow
I am an academic clinical fellow in general surgery in the Northern Deanery. I studied medicine at Liverpool Medical School and developed an early interest in hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) surgery as an undergraduate, gaining experience at the Aintree University Hospital Hepatobiliary Surgery Unit and Royal Liverpool Pancreatic Surgery Unit. I intercalated in Transplantation at Newcastle University, and developed a firm interest in liver disease and transplantation.
As an academic clinical fellow I have gained broad training in emergency and elective general surgery, while maintaining an academic output. During my academic block I worked primarily in the Blood and Transplant Research Unit, investigating novel therapeutics delivered via normothermic machine perfusion to liver grafts declined for transplantation.
I was awarded a Wellcome Trust Biomedical Research Vacation Scholarship, and undertook a laboratory project investigating the molecular interaction of gemcitabine and capecitabine in a pancreatic cancer cell line at the Liverpool NIHR Pancreatic Biomedical Research Unit. I also performed a study investigating the impact of age on outcomes for patients with pancreatic cancer. This was presented nationally and internationally, followed by publication in Pancreas.
I undertook an intercalated MRes in Transplantation at Newcastle University from 2016-17, studying the impact of a supra-regional allocation system for deceased donor liver grafts (the Northern Liver Alliance). This was presented internationally at the European Society For Organ Transplantation in 2017, and shortlisted for the Calne Williams Prize at the British Transplantation Society Meeting 2018. During this time, I also undertook projects investigating outcomes for patients with hilar cholangiocarcinoma and patients with renal cell carcinoma that has metastasised to the pancreas.
After graduating, I worked as an academic foundation doctor in Glasgow. I furthered my experience of pancreatic cancer research by undertaking a project investigating the impact of body composition on outcomes for patients with pancreatic cancer. This project looked specifically at whether sarcopaenia affected a patient's likelihood of undergoing chemotherapy successfully following pancreatic resection.
During my ACF, I wrote a Cochrane review on fibrin-based haemostatic agents for reducing blood loss in adult liver surgery and undertook projects investigating the impact of agonal times on post-transplantation outcomes in DCD liver and pancreas grafts. I presented a clinical trial proposal to the British Transplantation Society's Dragons' Den session on persufflation of pancreas grafts prior to islet isolation, which ultimately won. I have also written an analysis piece for the BMJ on antibiotics as first-line therapy for adults with acute appendicitis.