Dr Sofia Ferreira Gonzalez, revolutionising liver transplantation

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Sofia Ferreira Gonzalez knew what she wanted to be when she grew up by the time she was nine years old. She had picked up one of the many copies of National Geographic that were a constant presence in her childhood home and saw that scientists at the University of Edinburgh had done something extraordinary: they had cloned a sheep. Learning about Dolly and what it was possible for science to achieve set Sofia’s imagination on fire, and she was determined from that moment to become a scientist. Now she too is based at the University of Edinburgh and working on her own scientific breakthrough: a non-invasive test that will judge liver viability prior to transplantation and transform the transplant process for patients and surgeons alike.

Sofia grew up in Salamanca, a city in western Spain, with her mother, a nurse, her father, a teacher, and her younger sister. Her father worked away during the week at a language school and Sofia grew up watching her mother deftly handle the responsibilities of work and home, instilling in her a sense of responsibility and a can-do attitude. During a short-lived flirtation with the idea of becoming an astronaut, Sofia enrolled at the University of Salamanca to study biotechnology, a five-year course that gave her a solid grounding in bioreactor design.

After graduating, Sofia worked at the Applied Medical Research (CIMA) in Navarra, where she worked with livers for the first time. She loved the biological element of her work and her time at CIMA inspired her to go on to complete an MSc in biomedical research at the University of Navarra. Working too hard to have a social life has its upsides, Sofia met her future husband while working at CIMA, and the research experience she gained during her time there was to shortly prove invaluable.

While studying for her MSc Sofia saw an advertisement for a PhD programme in stem cells and regenerative medicine at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Regeneration and Repair (IRR). Sofia applied immediately, having little hope, so she was surprised to get a call from the Institute’s Director, Professor Stuart Forbes, soon after as she walked home from work. She and Professor Forbes talked all the way home, and at the end of the call he offered her the chance to visit his lab in Edinburgh and decide if she wanted to take up the studentship. Even though Professor Forbes gave Sofia fair warning about the Scottish weather, Sofia felt the opportunity was too good to turn down and she moved to Edinburgh in September 2013, with her husband following her a year later once he finished his own PhD.

After completing her PhD, which focused on the molecular mechanisms of senescence, or cell ageing, and its role in liver disease, Sofia became a post-doctoral researcher in the Forbes Group at the Centre for Regenerative Medicine (CRM). The idea that has become the foundation of the SensiBile project came to her early in her postdoc career.

One of the interesting things about senescence,” she says. “Is that you can detect it by what these senescent cells secrete. It occurred to me that we can perhaps indirectly assess what is happening in the liver by testing something that the organ excretes - the bile.

Testing the quality of a donor liver before transplantation would vastly improve donor-recipient matching and prevent the development of biliary complications, an occurrence that that affects up to 30% of liver transplanted patients. 

Sofia had a revolutionary idea, but taking the first steps towards commercialising it began somewhat accidentally, she admits. IRR was accepting applications for its Early Career Innovator Award at the time, and while she thought her idea was too basic to succeed, she applied anyway, reasoning that the application would be a useful writing exercise. She submitted her application while seven months pregnant with her second child, and when her baby was one week old Sofia received word that she had been shortlisted and that she’d be pitching to the judging panel just a week later. She went to the pitching session, her husband and newborn daughter waiting nearby so that she could run out for emergency feeds, and she delivered her pitch. Unable to stay for her competitors’ pitches, she was back at home feeding her baby when Professor Forbes called to tell her she’d won her first pot of funding.

That was the start of everything​​​​​. I went from having no expectations at all to suddenly thinking ‘OK, what can we do with this?’ It’s happened so fast that I sometimes wonder ‘how the heck did I get here?

“That was when I started to get involved with the people that Edinburgh Innovations,” Sofia says. After speaking with the iTPA team at Edinburgh Innovations about the translational potential of her research, she was given access to mentorship, IP and technology transfer expertise, alerted to additional funding opportunities and supported in applying for programmes that would bring her research plans ever closer to becoming reality. “They have been absolutely amazing,” she says. “Working with them has opened one door after another.”

After securing some smaller pots of funding and support, Sofia secured a place on iCURe, the UK’s leading early-stage research pre-accelerator programme. The programme gave her the time and resources to attend conferences and visit transplant units abroad so that she could make vital research contacts and hone her concept, but the Covid-19 pandemic put those plans on hold. With little opportunity for travel, labs closed and her working hours limited by childcare, the momentum that Sofia’s idea had gained was threatened, but she refused to be thwarted. Instead she got up at 4am each day to fit in three hours of grant applications and data analysis before her children woke up.

Sofia’s persistence paid off, and what would become the SensiBile network started to come together. Co-founder Dr Hannah Esser was a PhD student in the Forbes Group at the time, and is a transplant surgeon at Innsbruck Medical Hospital, home to one of the largest liver transplant units in Europe. When discussing the difficulty of procuring samples from the UK due to stringent ethical guidelines, Sofia and Hannah had the idea to approach the Innsbruck transplant team. Hannah coordinated the study project with Deputy Hospital Director Stefan Schneeberger, now also part of the SensiBile team, and they started receiving samples to work with shortly afterward.

Procuring more samples from a broader geographical demographic will help Sofia perfect SensiBile’s biosignature, and she is currently undergoing this process with the help of transplant surgeons Dr Damiano Patrono and Dr Davide Cussa, who are based inAzienda Ospedaliera di Padova, Italy. The team is also making plans to conduct on-site tests in Innsbruck before beginning clinical studies. As if that weren’t enough to be getting on with, Sofia has started her own laboratory at Centre for Inflammation Research (CIR).

Sofia is an exemplar of what it’s possible to achieve when you reach beyond academic boundaries. So what would Sofia tell early career researchers who have an innovative idea?

Commercialising is just another way of potentially bringing things to the real world,” she says. “It's a perfect route, sometimes faster and easier than the traditional academic route. Beyond the well-known funding sources there are plenty of alternative ways to bring research to the real world. I had one conversation with the iTPA team at Edinburgh Innovations and everything snowballed from there.