https://www.stmarkshospitalfoundation.org.uk/, https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/st-marks-seasonal-appeal-2025

St. Mark's Hospital Foundation, Acton Lane, London (2026)

13/03/2026

📢🔬Help Shape the Future of Crohn’s and Colitis Research in the UK

Are you living with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis? Are you a carer or family member of someone with inflamatory bowel disease (IBD) or an IBD-focused healthcare professional?

✨Applications are now open to join the 2026 UK IBD Priority Setting Partnership Steering Group.✨

Your experience and perspectives are vital in helping ensure research focuses on what matters most to people affected by IBD.

This project will identify the Top 10 research priorities for inflammatory bowel disease in the UK, helping guide national strategy and future research funding.

No previous research experience is required.

Steering group members will take part in a small number of online meetings and help review and prioritise research questions.

📅 Application deadline: 30th April 2026
🔗 Apply here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfNiNURIKrUWTwpcYMxurMWfq4OwBke25TTRnBQMJsHAAU4kQ/viewform

Please consider applying or sharing with someone who may be interested.

11/03/2026

💜We love when our supporters bring their own unique approaches to fundraising for St Mark's Hospital Foundation.

Aidan has been a patient of St Mark's Hospital since 2012 when he was referred to the care of Dr Jeremy Nightingale, a now retired Consultant Gastroenterologist specialising in intestinal failure and inflammatory bowel disease.

Aidan sat down with the Foundation to share his story and his decision to give back.💜🛠️

"I see St Mark's as an adult version of Great Ormond Street in the way staff and nurses are with patients—nothing is too much bother for them. I am a self-taught welder and have been welding since 1997. I have decided to make some dog and cat sculptures to raise money for St Mark's. This is how I would like to give something back to the hospital."

😺🐶Interested in supporting St Mark's by purchasing a garden creature of your own?

Each sculpture costs around £30 and is made to order from recycled scrap metal. DM us for more info, and we'd be happy to put you in touch with Aidan. 🤝

04/03/2026

✨Turning personal experience into meaningful research ✨🔬

We're lucky to have such dedicated, talented, and inspiring people in the St Mark's community 💜

Meet Ollie Kaye (Thekidwithabag). The 3rd year medical student and content creator has returned to St Mark's Hospital, where he was once a patient, to contribute to ongoing research into patient education around diet and Ulcerative Colitis.

🥳Congratulations on presenting this research at your recent undergrad conference.

Read Ollie's thoughts below:

“Firstly a huge thank you to St Mark’s, particularly to Itai, Orestis and Dakota, who welcomed me into their team and gave me the opportunity to contribute to such meaningful research. We conducted a thematic analysis of diet-related TikTok videos in relation to Ulcerative Colitis (UC) surgery, to better understand the information these patients are exposed to online.

As both a patient at St Mark’s Hospital myself, and a content creator who shares my experiences of living with IBD and a stoma bag on social media, I personally understand and live with the challenges surrounding food and misinformation on these platforms.

Now, as a third-year medical student, it’s incredibly rewarding to be part of work that has the potential to improve clinical practice and patient education. I’m especially proud to have presented this research at my first undergraduate conference, a milestone that marks the beginning of what I hope will be a lifelong journey in research. Being able to contribute to research with the very hospital that cared for me feels truly full circle.”

28/02/2026

🔎Spotlight on Polyposis for Rare Disease Day

Rare disease day is a global movement seeking to increase awareness of rare diseases (affecting fewer than 1 in 2,000 people) worldwide 🌏💪

🧬The Polyposis team at St Mark's Hospital (pictured above), are world leaders in diagnosing and treating Familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP), an inherited condition that affects 1 in 8,000 people in the UK and greatly increases their risk of developing colorectal cancer.

The St Mark’s Hospital Polyposis Registry was started in 1924, and 100 years later, continues to provide genetic counselling and testing, surgery, endoscopic management, and multidisciplinary life-long care to thousands of patients with FAP.

As a rare disease, FAP patients often face lack of awareness of their condition and difficulty accessing specialist care. To combat this, NHS England and the St Mark's Polyposis team, led by Professor Sue Clark, developed a UK-wide Rare Disease Collaborative Network in 2022.

The seven specialist centres in the network benefit from the cutting-edge knowledge and training at St Mark's Hospital and provide expert care for patients and families with rare polyposis syndromes across the country. 💜

🔗Learn more about the Polyposis registry and St Mark's Familial and Inherited Cancer team here: https://www.stmarkshospital.nhs.uk/the-polyposis-registry/

21/02/2026

💜Thanks to our generous supporters, St Mark’s Hospital Foundation is able to fund the cost of around 30 research fellows, like Gita, every year.

These fellows represent the future of not only St Mark’s, but gastroenterology and colorectal surgery worldwide. 🔬🌏

We appreciate Gita for sharing her experience at St Mark’s:

“My experience at St Mark’s has been exceptional. The hospital’s history creates an environment where research is embedded into daily practice. What makes it unique is the culture there is a genuine openness to collaboration, academic discussion, and innovation. Working alongside clinicians and researchers who are leaders in their fields has been both inspiring and humbling.

This experience has reinforced for me that the future of colorectal surgery will not be defined by technology alone, but by how we integrate technology with thoughtful clinical care. I’m excited to see where the next phase of this work leads.”

🔗📃Learn more about Gita’s research and her time as a fellow at St Mark’s here: https://www.stmarkshospitalfoundation.org.uk/news/interview-with-gita-lingam/

20/02/2026

✨🔬Where does AI fit into the world of gastroenterology and colorectal surgery?

💭💜Dr Gita Lingam shared her thoughts:

“AI is already beginning to reshape gastroenterology and colorectal surgery. In endoscopy, we are seeing real-time polyp detection and characterisation. In IBD, AI models are being developed to predict flare-ups, stratify risk, and standardise scoring systems. In surgery, data science may soon inform intraoperative decision-making, complication prediction, and long-term outcomes analysis. The key challenge lies in ensuring these tools are clinically relevant, rigorously validated, and thoughtfully implemented.

I was drawn to this field for two main reasons. The first being an interest in the expansion of surgical innovation and how we can use AI to solve real clinical problems. The second is a feeling that sadly Crohn’s patients are often overlooked. Typically, patients are diagnosed at an early age and thus suffer for many years. Even a small improvement in management could potentially have a profound effect on quality of life for Crohn’s patients.”

🔗📃Read the full interview with Gita here: https://www.stmarkshospitalfoundation.org.uk/news/interview-with-gita-lingam/

19/02/2026

✨🔬Research Fellow Feature

Meet Gita Lingam, one of our amazing St Mark's research fellows and the winner of the 2025 John Nicholls Prize for Research 🏆

The prize, presented by the prestigious surgeon and creator of the J Pouch, Professor John Nicholls himself, goes to the individual whose work best illustrates the ground-breaking research done by St Mark’s research fellows.

💬💜This month, Gita sat down with us to discuss her award-winning research.

“My research focuses primarily on using artificial intelligence to improve the management of Crohn’s disease. Unfortunately, Crohn’s disease is a lifelong incurable disease, with patients having frequent hospital attendances and often multiple surgeries. My research aims to explore why recurrence rate is so high in Crohn’s disease and if AI can help to improve this.

What excites me most about this research is the opportunity to bridge every day clinical practice with digital innovation. In IBD especially, where disease behaviour is heterogeneous and recurrence is common, smarter surveillance strategies could have a real impact on patient outcomes and ultimately their quality of life.”

Come back tomorrow to learn more about Gita's research and the use of AI in gastroenterology and colorectal surgery.

17/02/2026

Are you a healthcare provider who treats IBD?

We have a NEW course - starting on the 24th of April 🙌

Announcing 'Advanced Diet Therapy for IBD: Integrating Nutritional Care in the Adult MDT Pathway' ✅

This course explores the role of advanced diet therapy in the MDT management of adults with IBD. Through lectures, case studies and practical sessions, participants will gain in-depth understanding of surgical and medical interventions, and how tailored nutritional strategies can be integrated across patient care pathways. 🥗

Interested? Click the link for details and registration: https://stmarksacademicinstitute.org.uk/courses/advanced-diet-therapy-for-ibd/

Please note, this course is for healthcare providers only.

12/02/2026

Better support for surgeons means better outcomes for patients 🤝

This month, Kapil Sahnan, a colorectal surgeon at St Mark's, was the first to operate wearing an exoskeleton device. The suit was designed by Stanley Handling to reduce muscle strain and fatigue during long-lasting surgeries. 💪

The device supported Mr Sahnan's arms and shoulders for 7 hours while he removed the ileoanal pouch of a patient with inflammatory bowel disease.

As the Director of Innovation for St Mark's, Mr Sahnan is looking to get more cutting-edge tech into the hospital. He said, "We are a small hospital with a long history of innovation regarding bowel disease, so we should pay tribute to our predecessors by continuing to push forward." 💥💜

04/02/2026

🌏Today is World Cancer Day. This year's theme, “United by Unique", focuses on placing individuals at the centre of care and bringing patient stories to the forefront of conversation.

We know bowel cancer impacts everyone differently. Use the comments as a space to share your experiences and your feelings, both the good and the painful. Let's raise awareness, and commit to hearing every story.

St Mark's is a world leader in colorectal cancer research, developing increasingly personalised cancer prevention, screening, and treatment pathways. As the UK's national bowel hospital, St Mark's offers a variety of specialist clinical services for Bowel Cancer patients, including:

• Complex Cancer Clinic
• St Mark’s Bowel Cancer Screening Centre
• St Mark’s Centre for Familial Intestinal Cancer
• The Lynch Syndrome Clinic
• Gastrointestinal Consequences Of Cancer

🔗If you want to learn more about the ongoing bowel cancer research made possible by our community of supporters, click this link: https://www.stmarkshospitalfoundation.org.uk/about/publications/annual-account-2024-2025/

28/01/2026

Meet Beki and Isobelle! 💜

We're so grateful to the mum and daughter duo for their fundraising efforts over the last year and to Beki for sharing their family's experience with St Mark's.

"I’m running the Manchester Half Marathon with my daughter, Isobelle, to raise money for St Mark's Hospital, a place that has saved my mum’s life twice. Their amazing care has given me more time with my mum, a woman who has been a huge role model throughout my life. Her constant support has shaped who I am today.

When I was 6, my mum’s life was saved by the incredible team at St Mark’s. I remember how scary it was for me and my brother. We were so little, and being apart from our mum while she was in hospital for such a long time was hard. Then, just last year (and nearly 40 years later) my mum was back at St Mark’s again, facing another life-threatening challenge. The hospital’s care was just as amazing, with everyone from the doctors, nurses, nutrition team, physios, and the lady who cleaned her room all being so kind. Every single one was inspirational in their own way! Twice now, St Mark’s has given me more time with the woman who has shaped so much of my life.

Running this half marathon with Isobelle is about more than just raising money for the hospital that saved my mum’s life, it’s about celebrating people who inspire us, whether that’s the incredible medical team at St Mark’s or my mum herself."

25/01/2026

📢Are you interested in running the Royal Parks Half Marathon for St Mark's this year? 💥

The general ballot officially opens tomorrow, but you can get an early spot RIGHT NOW through our Run for Charity page! 🏃💨

The Royal Parks Half is one of the most spectacular half marathons that central London has to offer. Charity runners will glide through four of London's stunning Royal Parks and past many of London's most famous landmarks.

This run is a great way to support the cutting edge research and innovation taking place at St Mark's Hospital.

🔗👉 Click the link to sign up now: https://runforcharity.com/event/st-marks-hospital-foundation/royal-parks-half-marathon

St. Mark's Hospital Foundation

13/03/2026

11/03/2026

04/03/2026

28/02/2026

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20/02/2026

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