Prof. Rajiv Jalan MBBS, MD, PhD, FRCPE, FRCP
About Rajiv Jalan
Prof. Rajiv Jalan is Professor of Hepatology at University College London, Institute for Liver and Digestive Health, Royal Free Hospital, London, a position he has held since joining UCL as Senior Lecturer/Honorary Consultant in 2000, and where he was awarded a personal chair in 2009. He is Head of the Liver Failure Group at UCL, which currently comprises six PIs including himself, and continues to practice as a Hepatologist at the Royal Free Hospital at secondary and tertiary level. He is Scientific Director of the European Foundation for the Study of Chronic Liver Failure (EF-CLIF; efclif.com), the independent foundation that grew from the EASL CLIF Consortium he founded in 2009. He is Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Yaqrit Limited (since 2014), a clinical-stage biotechnology company advancing drugs and devices for liver failure, with four subsidiary companies: Hepyx Ltd, Enterosorb Ltd, Amalive Ltd, and Cytox Ltd. He is co-founder of CyberLiver Ltd (cyberliver.com) and Gigabiome Ltd, and founder of Hepyx Ltd (2019). He serves as Scientific Advisor to IAG, Image Analysis Group, with expertise in MRI, FibroScan, and biomarkers for clinical trial design in liver disease.
Prof. Jalan’s primary research focus is the pathophysiology and treatment of liver failure, cirrhosis, acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF), hepatic encephalopathy, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD/MASH). His most important scientific contributions include the first description of ACLF as a clinically, prognostically, and pathophysiologically distinct syndrome (first paper 2001–2002), the discovery that systemic inflammation plays a crucial role in the progression of liver injury and cirrhosis to liver failure, the discovery of the role of hypothermia in acute liver failure management (first in man study 1999), and the development of ornithine phenylacetate (MNK 6105) as a novel ammonia-lowering drug for hepatic encephalopathy.
His current translational programme encompasses: the A-TANGO programme (EU H2020, G-CSF and TAK-242 for ACLF); CARBALIVE (carbon-based oral absorbent); DIALIVE (liver dialysis device); AlcoChange (smartphone digital therapeutic for alcohol-related liver disease); Cirrhocare (digital therapeutic management system for cirrhosis); TLR4 antagonist therapy for ACLF; and the MICROB-PREDICT program (microbiome-based biomarkers for decompensation prediction). He has expertise in MRI, FibroScan, and biomarkers for designing studies to support novel drug candidate development, and has developed the CLIF-SOFA, CLIF-C ACLF, and A-TANGO scoring systems. He has coordinated the following EF-CLIF studies: CANONIC, PREDICT, ACLARA, CHANCE, MICROB-PREDICT, DECISION, A-TANGO.
Prof. Jalan has extensive experience as principal investigator and scientific director across multiple sponsored and investigator-initiated clinical trials. Named trials and programmes from supplied sources include: A-TANGO (Phase 2, EU H2020, G-CSF and TAK-242 for ACLF, NCT/EU grant 2021 to 2026); AlcoChange Phase 2 (NIHR i4i grant NIHR201002, smartphone digital therapeutic for alcohol-related liver disease, 2020 to 2023); MICROB-PREDICT (EU H2020, microbiome biomarkers for cirrhosis decompensation, 2019 to 2024); CARBALIVE Phase 2; DIALIVE Phase 2; Cirrhocare (BMJ Open 2025, prospective multicenter RCT, digital therapeutic for cirrhosis); and the YAQ007 Phase 2a randomized open-label study of YAQ007 versus rifaximin in cirrhosis (Hepatology 2026, DOI: 10.1097/HEP.0000000000001748). The GRAFT study was a named study of G-CSF in ACLF. He has previously coordinated the CANONIC, PREDICT, ACLARA, and CHANCE studies through EF-CLIF. Ornithine phenylacetate (MNK 6105/06) is entering Phase 3 clinical trials, having been licensed to Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals. He serves on the Lancet regional ACLF transplantation program (published Lancet Regional Health Europe, 2024, DOI: 10.1016/j.lanepe.2024…).
Prof. Jalan has approximately 55,000 total citations and approximately 552 original papers, editorials, and reviews on his UCL profile. ResearchGate lists 1,023 publications with 49,122 citations. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Hepatology (2015 to 2019), the first-ranked liver journal (impact factor 25.08 at end of his tenure), and previously Editor-in-Chief of Liver International (2012 to 2014). He is President Emeritus of the International Society for Hepatic Encephalopathy and Nitrogen Metabolism (ISHEN, President 2012 to 2014). He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh (FRCPE), and Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He has received a UCL Business Award and has successfully supervised 10 MD/PhD students, three of whom have become Professors. ORCID: 0000-0002-7747-4015.
Prof. Jalan obtained his MBBS from Nilratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital, Kolkata, India (1981 to 1988). He trained in clinical hepatology and received his MD focused on the role of TIPSS in advanced liver disease from Edinburgh University (1992 to 1995). He obtained his PhD, a collaborative effort between the Universities of Edinburgh and Maastricht, from Maastricht University (1997 to 2005), during which he made two critical discoveries: the role of hypothermia in acute liver failure management and the novel drug ornithine phenylacetate for hepatic encephalopathy. He is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP, 1991). He joined UCL as Senior Lecturer/Honorary Consultant in 2000 and was awarded a personal chair in 2009. He founded the UCL Liver Failure Group, the EASL CLIF Consortium (2009), Yaqrit Ltd (2014), and the European Foundation for the Study of Chronic Liver Failure (EF-CLIF).