Our current research interests are associated with understanding the interplay between genomics, epigenomics and the environment on healthy development, healthy ageing and in complex/chronic disease manifestation. The overarching aim is to provide scientific substantiation for new healthcare strategies to promote healthy aging and disease prevention.
Harnessing large-scale research efforts from published genome-wide association studies, epigenome-wide association studies, and valuable resources such as the UK Biobank, our research team use bioinformatic approaches to meta-analyse data with that from interdisciplinary projects at Ulster University. We also work closely with a network of multinational collaborators to analyse data from powerful randomised control trials, studies of vitamin intake in pregnancy, obesity, exercise, DNA damage and bariatric surgery.
In addition to large -omics approaches, the research team are interested in gene-editing, and using molecular biology-based approaches to further investigate mechanistic processes in cell models and tissues.