Rahul Kalla

Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer and Consultant Gastroenterologist

Contact details

Address

Street

4-5 Little France Drive
Edinburgh BioQuarter
Edinburgh

City
IRR, University of Edinburgh
Post code
EH16 4UU
Street

Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh
51 Little France Crescent
Edinburgh

City
Gastrointestinal Unit, Royal Infirmary Edinburgh
Post code
EH16 4SA

Biography

Background

Rahul Kalla is a honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer at IRR and a Consultant Gastroenterologist at NHS Lothian. He holds an MRC funded Clinical Academic Partnership and and an NRS/CSO funded research fellowships. He qualified in Medicine from the University of Sheffield in 2005 and undertook junior clinical training in Sheffield and Nottingham and undertook Gastroenterology training in Manchester.  He completed a PhD at Centre for Genomics and Experimental Medicine (CGEM) investigating epigenetic mechanisms in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. His current fellowship focuses on fibrosis in intestinal diseases including Inflammatory Bowel Diseases; testing novel translatable imaging modalities (eg: PET imaging) that allow non-invasive in-vivo imaging of immune-stromal activity and linking this with tissue based profiling to better understand fibro-inflammatory development and events that lead to disease progression and  irreversible damage. 

Qualifications

MBChB University of Sheffield (2005)

PhD University of Edinburgh (2018)

FRCPE Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh (2026)

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Current PhD students supervised

Alexander Le Saint Grant (Clinical Research fellow and Colorectal Surgical Registrar)

Jiayue Zhao (Co-supervisor)

Research summary

Our research group focusses on translational science in Gastroenterology, in particular risk stratifying individuals using novel molecular profiling and imaging techniques to facilitate future development of novel drug therapies. 

Current research interests

Intestinal Fibrosis in immune mediated chronic diseases (eg: Crohn's disease)

Past research interests

Epigenetic mechanisms (miRNA, DNA methylation) in chronic immune mediated diseases Proteomics in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Current project grants

Crohn's and Colitis UK grant (2024-2026). Investigating the utility of PET/MRI Fibrosis Activated Protein Inhibitor (FAPI) imaging to track fibrosis activity in end-stage fibrostenosis in Crohn's disease
MRC CARP fellowship (2024-2027) - Investigating the utility of PET/MRI FAPI imaging to detect and track fibrosis activity in patients with a new diagnosis of Crohn's disease
Industry Grant (Johnson & Johnson 2025-2028) - Tracking disease onset and progression in Crohn's disease fibrosis using multi-omic profiling and full body PET/CT imaging
Crohn's and Colitis UK (2023-2026) - Developing a translatable proteomic blood test profile as a surrogate marker for mucosal healing in IBD

Past project grants

Crohn's and Colitis (2018; Co-Investigator) - The role of circulating Micro-RNAs in predicting clinical disease outcomes in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD)

Professor David Newby (University of Edinburgh)

Professor GT Ho (University of Glasgow)

Professor Marc Dweck (University of Edinburgh)

Professor Jack Satsangi (University of Oxford)

Professor Prakash Ramachandran (University of Edinburgh)

Dr Ray Boyapati (Monash University, Australia)

IBD Character Consortium ( EU FP7 - Norway, Sweden, Spain)

 

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