Overview

I graduated from The University of Manchester with a First Class Joint Honours Degree in Pharmacology and Physiology and then went on to study medicine at King’s College London. I graduated with a Distinction in Medical Sciences in 2012.

I have since completed academic foundation training in South Yorkshire and an Academic Clinical Fellowship in gastroenterology at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.

Throughout my training I have developed a deep interest in the complex interplay between diet, microbes and intestinal immune cells and how disruption leads to disease both locally in the GI tract and at distinct extra-intestinal sites.

PhD title

Regulation of intestinal immune tolerance in health and disease.

Brief summary of PhD project

I use a mechanistic experimental approach to interrogate how intestinal immune cells promote and maintain tolerance towards commensal microbes and dietary antigens, which is important to further our understanding of conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease and coeliac disease.

Supervisors

• Dr Matthew Hepworth (University of Manchester)
• Prof Richard Grencis (University of Manchester)
• Prof David Sanders (University of Sheffield)

Collaborations

• Dr Julie Gibbs, Centre for Biological Timing, University of Manchester
• Prof Kai-Michael Toellner, Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy, University of Birmingham

Outputs

• Publication: Penny HA, Hodge SH, Hepworth MR. Orchestration of intestinal homeostasis and tolerance by group 3 innate lymphoid cells. Semin Immunopathol. 2018 Jul;40(4):357-370.
• Invited Talk: ‘Inflammation in Coeliac Disease’; Inflammation, Breaking Down Silos Meeting II, December 2018, Oxford University.
• Conference paper: (submitted to British Society of Gastroenterology Annual Meeting; pending review) Penny HA, Rees M, Goodwin J, Key T, Sanders DSS. No association between HLA-DQA1*05 and -DQB1*02 gene dosage and clinical phenotype of coeliac disease.

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