Debbie Shawcross


Debbie Shawcross is a Clinician Scientist and Professor in Hepatology and Chronic Liver Failure based at the Institute of Liver Studies, King’s College Hospital and the James Black Centre, King’s College London having previously been awarded a prestigious 5-year HEFCE Clinical Senior Fellowship in 2008. She works as a Consultant Hepatologist on the King’s Liver Unit with a specialist interest in hepatic encephalopathy and the complications of cirrhosis.

She is a newly elected member of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) Scientific Committee and Governing Board and is an advocate for high quality education and training in gastroenterology and hepatology having been a Health Education England London Gastroenterology Training Programme Director for 10 years serving on the British Society Gastroenterology (BSG) Specialist Advisory Committee and Training Committee, BSG Mentor and an active member of the BSG Supporting Women in Gastroenterology.
She is Deputy Chair of the BSG Research Committee. 

The aims of her research programme are to characterise the immunobiology of chronic liver failure focusing specifically on the gut-liver-brain axis in the context of the gut microbiome as a driver of immune dysfunction, inflammation and encephalopathy.
She is leading the field in clinical trials of faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) and is Chief Investigator of the NIHR-funded EME UK multicentre randomised placebo-controlled clinical trial of FMT (capsules) [PROMISE Trial] which commences at the end of 2022 in patients with metabolic-associated and alcohol-related cirrhosis.