David Dickens

MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Towards Mitigating Severe Neurotoxicity in T-cell Immunotherapy at University of Liverpool on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - MRC DiMeN Doctoral Training Partnership: Towards Mitigating Severe Neurotoxicity in T-cell Immunotherapy at University of Liverpool, listed on FindAPhD.com

More details www.findaphd.com/phds/project... bit.ly/DiMeNPhDDead...: Dec 4, 2025 #PhD #Neuroscience #DrugSafety. Fully funded for UK students only

Are you ready to tackle one of the most pressing safety challenges in immuno-oncology? We are offering a DiMeN DTP iCASE MRC-funded PhD studentship in the Dickens Lab, in collaboration with AstraZeneca. Decode how the #BloodBrainBarrier is compromised & explore ways to protect it

Shout out to Josephine Pedder and Andrew Sellin for presenting at the meeting and congratulations to Jo for winning the Best PhD student presentation award!

Fantastic 14th UK & Ireland Early Career blood-brain barriers meeting last week!
Many thanks to the local hosts, Avril Reddy & Natalie Hudson from Matt Campbell lab at Trinity College Dublin for an excellent meeting showcasing early career research on CNS barriers.

I gave a talk yesterday at the bionow Neuroscience 2025 conference on “Crossing the blood–brain barrier: emerging therapeutic strategies”. Many thanks for the organisers for the invite and was great to see the depth and breadth of neuroscience research from both industry and academic scientists!

The British Association for Psychopharmacology summer meeting showcased cutting edge psychopharmacology research and was an excellent meeting!

Congratulations to Leon Lane, an undergraduate pharmacology student, who was awarded a British Association of Psychopharmacology (BAP) Summer Research Internship. Leon presented his research involving scopolamine and glycopyrrolate at the BAP summer meeting as a poster presentation. Well done, Leon!

Many thanks to Paulina Kolasinska-Zwierz for the invite and all the excellent questions after my talk – was a stimulating and interesting day!

Was great to hear about Alchemab work on resilient individuals and how to identify antibodies with similar properties as novel therapeutics. Also good to discuss the challenges of the blood-brain barrier in the context of drug discovery and development.

Excellent visit to Alchemab Therapeutics yesterday to give an invited talk on “Crossing the blood–brain barrier: emerging therapeutic strategies”.

Looking forward to the next meeting in a years’ time and for the ongoing enrichment and differing focus that collaborating with industry gives to a project!

There was an excellent range of posters and talks from UCB funded PhD students reflecting the cutting-edge science that is performed with academic collaborators. Also, the application of this research to aid in the R&D process was clear and lead to a vibrate and informative meeting.

Attended a stimulating UCB Pharma PhD Day today. Was a great opportunity for Andrew Sellin to present on his UCB funded PhD project involving the blood-brain barrier.

Some of the Dickens Lab attended #BNA2025 this week -right here in our home city of Liverpool! 🧠✨
Fantastic to see such a wide range of neuroscience topics and brilliant presentations throughout the festival. #Neuroscience #BNA #Liverpool

Great visit by our UCB Pharma collaborators to Universty of Liverpool to discuss Andrews ongoing PhD project focused on developing a state of the art blood-brain barrier model using an organ on a chip platform. This aims to surpass current methodologies for testing drug permeability across the BBB

Great visit to Revivocell Ltd. today at Daresbury Laboratory!

I meet up with Abdullah Talari and we focused on the potential of NANOSTACKS technology to enhance in vitro blood-brain barrier modelling -an exciting step forward for neuropharmacology and translational research.

Many thanks for the team at Sygnature Discovery for inviting me to give a guest lecture on "Crossing the blood–brain barrier: emerging therapeutic strategies". Was great to meet the team, chat about drug transporters, DMPK and discuss the challenge of drug delivery to the brain! #Sygnature Discovery

Delighted that the Campbell Lab, based at Trinity College Dublin, will host the 14th UK & Ireland Early Career Blood-Brain Barrier Symposium on the 17th of July 2025! Further Info: bbbsymposium.com & to register: ti.to/genetics/uk-... @mattcampbelltcd.bsky.social

Our review is now out in the March print issue of Lancet Neurology!

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Crossing the blood–brain barrier: emerging therapeutic strategies for neurological disease The blood–brain barrier is a physiological barrier that can prevent both small and complex drugs from reaching the brain to exert a pharmacological effect. For treatment of neurological diseases, drug...

New Personal View online at The Lancet Neurology, looking at some emerging strategies to get drugs across the blood–brain barrier #neurology @thelancet.bsky.social This paper came about after I attended a talk at the Festival of Neuroscience in 2023 #neuroscience www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Crossing the blood–brain barrier: emerging therapeutic strategies for neurological disease The blood–brain barrier is a physiological barrier that can prevent both small and complex drugs from reaching the brain to exert a pharmacological effect. For treatment of neurological diseases, drug...

Here is an important read from an important journal ! To quote @davidsdickens.bsky.social from his earlier post, the authors "highlight several pioneering strategies that show promise for safely bypassing this barrier." #BloodBrainBarrier #cerebrovascular www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Our review is now out in Lancet Neurology on "Crossing the Blood–Brain Barrier: Emerging Therapeutic Strategies for Neurological Disease’. We highlight several pioneering strategies that show promise for safely bypassing this barrier.

My lab has extensive expertise in targeted drug delivery to the brain and has established a cutting-edge cellular BBB model for drug and disease modelling. This means we are at the forefront of research into this exciting area of unmet need. news.liverpool.ac.uk/2025/01/22/r...

Our review is now out in Lancet Neurology on "Crossing the Blood–Brain Barrier: Emerging Therapeutic Strategies for Neurological Disease". We highlight several pioneering strategies that show promise for safely bypassing this barrier.
authors.elsevier.com/a/1kUHI5FFzL...

As crossing this barrier is a major stumbling block for the development of new treatments for brain cancers.

Great short talk by Jo on the blood-brain barrier at the recent Brain Tumour North West meeting. Jo is developing a novel, biologically relevant, in vitro model of the blood-brain tumour barrier (BBTB) using a cutting edge stem-cell derived model.

The Dickens Lab is a vibrant and welcoming team that has expertise in the blood-brain barrier, membrane transporters and psychopharmacology. We are always looking for new students, projects and collaborations so please feel free to reach out to me directly

We also have Joe and Rory who are new MRes students working on different projects involving the blood-brain barrier.

Please can you add me?

Inspiring meeting last week on neuroscience research at the Universty of Liverpool. The meeting highlighted the depth and breadth of neuroscience research at the Universty and the exciting opportunities for growing this area of research in the future! @livuni-ismib.bsky.social