Tom Thomas | Artis Ventures

DPhil Candidate, University of Oxford

Internal medicine, immune-mediated inflammatory diseases

Tom Thomas, MRCP

AV FELLOW

Tom is currently a DPhil student at the University of Oxford. As part of his PhD, he is using longitudinal single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA seq) to decipher the cellular determinants of anti-TNF therapy response across inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis.

Tom graduated from the University of East Anglia (Norwich, United Kingdom) and did his internship at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. He is currently a practising physician at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Tom has published over 30 research papers in medicine, across gastroenterology, rheumatology and mental health. He has peer-reviewed for Gut, Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases and Rheumatology. As part of his role as the Arthritis Therapy Acceleration Program (ATAP) Fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, he has collaborated with multiple biotech and pharmaceutical companies on early research and development as well as clinical trial design. Tom has previously interned at GE Healthcare Finnamore (now GE Healthcare Partners), a management consulting firm.

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HEALTHCARE ADVANCEMENT YOU HOPE TO SEE IN YOUR LIFETIME

Moving from a standardised 'one size fits all' approach in the treatment of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases to a more targeted treatment approach, driven by examination of molecular pathotypes of inflammation in individual patients.

GREATEST IMPACT IN TECH/HEALTH

scRNA sequencing, in conjunction with a deeper understanding of the tissue microenvironment courtesy of spatial transcriptomics and in time, high throughput single cell proteomics, will change modern medicine across the coming decades. Combining the transcriptomic profile of cells with high throughput single cell proteomics will hopefully not only enable deeper understanding of biology but also enable a lower failure rate in drug development.

GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT

Graduating from medical school at 21 years old.