Born in Dunfermline, Alastair moved to Newcastle University to become Senior Lecturer in Pathology and Honorary Consultant Histopathologist. In 2005 he became Dean of Clinical Medicine.

Alastair maintains a strong research interest in liver disease and is Editor in Chief of the principal international text book on hepatopathology, MacSween’s Pathology of the Liver, now into its 7th edition.  In addition, I was Editor in Chief of the peer reviewed journal, Histopathology for 7 years. I have > 20000 citations and an H index of 71.

He has undertaken consultancy work for pharmaceutical companies but was delighted to have been appointed to the new and exciting post of Professor of Precision and Molecular Pathology at Newcastle University from November 2019.

He is now Director of NovoPath (MRC/EPSRC Molecular Pathology Node) and Theme Lead for Precision Medicine, Genomics and Informatics. In addition he is Vice Chair of the Innovation Board of Integrated Covid Hub North East.