Meet the researchers

Natasha Bryan
Natasha is a PhD student at the University of Bristol, researching the mechanisms underlying atherosclerotic plaque rupture and the development of clinically detectable microRNA biomarkers. Her current research has identified a panel of novel microRNAs associated with acute coronary events and advanced clinical atherosclerosis under the supervision of Prof. Jason Johnson as a part of a wider international study. The microRNA panel directly targets proteins, upregulated in advanced atherosclerotic plaques, associated with proatherogenic pathways and pro-inflammatory cytokines. Her research is aimed at improving prediction and prevention of acute cardiac events via microRNA diagnostics.

Nicole Powell
Nicole is a PhD researcher at the University of Leeds, investigating how genetic changes called somatic mutations – which we all naturally accumulate as we age – may contribute to adaptation in cardiometabolic disease (e.g. diabetes/obesity). Somatic mutations have an established role in the development of cancer, but their role in non-cancerous diseases remains largely unexplored. Her academic journey began with a strong interest in diabetes and genetics, which led her to specialise in bioinformatics and genetics research. Nicole’s work involves analysing large-scale genetic data, such as from UK Biobank, to identify patterns of somatic mutations and their links to health outcomes (e.g. diabetes/obesity, inflammation, myocardial infarction, mortality). Interestingly, some somatic mutations appear to worsen disease, while others may offer protective effects. Understanding their role in cardiometabolic disease could lead to; 1) designing therapeutics which mimic their protective effects; 2) identifying biomarkers to assess disease risk earlier; 3) personalised medicine, tailoring treatments based on a person’s somatic mutation profile; 4) developing new drug targets to inhibit inflammatory pathways influenced by somatic mutations.

Ruby Moy
Ruby completed her undergraduate degree in Biology at Manchester Metropolitan University, followed by an MRes in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Birmingham. She joined her current lab at City St George's, University of London, as a research assistant and alongside her supervisor, Professor Pia Ostergaard, successfully secured BHF PhD funding. Ruby studies Primary Lymphoedema, a rare condition of the lymphatic vascular system where a genetic issue causes fluid buildup in the body. Her research focuses on finding genetic changes in patients who don't yet have answers and using new technologies to understand how these changes lead to the disease.

Research Training Fellowships for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals

Catherine Stowell
Catherine is a Research Training Fellow for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals at Imperial College, working on finding the most efficient, scalable ways to teach echocardiography (ultrasound imaging of the heart). As well as researching the most effective learning methods to help tackle the acute skills shortage, Catherine is looking at understanding the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence, and the ways in which it can support users of echocardiography and its impacts on measurement and reporting quality. She works in the research lab of Professor Francis and Dr Shun-Shin.

Jenny Tollit
Jenny is a paediatric clinical nurse specialist in inherited cardiac conditions (ICCs) and was awarded a BHF Research Training Fellowship for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals to undertake a PhD at Great Ormond Street Hospital and UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science. Her project focuses on the approach to cardiac screening in children and young people with a family history of sudden unexplained death (often referred to as SADS, or Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome). Her PhD project aims to describe how often ICC diagnoses are made in child-age relatives of those who have died due to SADS, as well as the psychosocial impact on families undergoing screening. One day a week Jenny retains a clinical role within the GOSH ICC service and runs a nurse-led clinic. She sits on the committee for the UK ICC Nursing and Midwifery Network and is part of the North Thames Regional Working Group for the Coronial Sudden Cardiac Death and Sudden Cardiac Arrest Pathway.

Karl Riley
Karl began his career with a masters degree in biomedical science before moving from the lab bench to the operating theatre. He trained as a clinical perfusionist, operating the heart-lung machine during cardiac surgery to support patients while surgeons work on the heart. This hands-on role sparked a deeper interest in improving the safety of these life-sustaining machines. As a BHF Research Training Fellow for Nurses and Healthcare Professionals, Karl now combines clinical work with research interests in medical device innovation. His goal is to make heart-lung machines safer for patients by addressing risks that arise during surgery. Karl is part of a collaboration between Imperial College London and UCL focused on developing a new device to reduce the risk of acute kidney injury (AKI), a serious complication of cardiac surgery. The device is designed to remove iron-containing byproducts released during surgery that can damage organs and increase the risk of long-term complications. By removing these harmful substances before they enter the patient’s circulation, the team hopes to prevent injury at the source. Through this fellowship, Karl is gaining new skills aiming to translate scientific knowledge into practical improvements in patient safety. 

Clinical Research Training Fellowships

Gautam Sen
Gautam is a Cardiology Registrar and BHF Clinical Research Training Fellow currently undertaking a PhD at King’s College London. His research focuses on advancing cardiac imaging through cardiovascular magnetic resonance to better understand myocardial inflammation in patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. This Fellowship has allowed him to pursue cutting-edge research while working alongside world-leading experts. 

James Wilson
James is a cardiology registrar in the London North East/Central region with an interest in heart failure, imaging and cardio-oncology. He is undertaking a PhD with UCL with his primary research being a cardiovascular sub-study of TRACERx EVO, a large observational lung cancer study led by UCL looking at, amongst other things, lung cancer evolution and its impact on metabolism and body composition. James is collaborating with them to utilise cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging, near-infrared spectroscopy of muscles, biomarkers, and wearable fitness trackers to understand the relationship and mechanistic link between cancer cachexia, cardiac atrophy, and cardiovascular fitness. James is incredibly excited to be collaborating on such a large study and utilising novel technologies to investigate this emerging field. 

Keenan Saleh
Keenan is a Clinical Research Training Fellow at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London. He is undertaking a PhD themed on unmasking patients with concealed arrhythmia syndromes using AI and wearable ECG technologies, including an AI-powered T shirt. He was invited to the Houses of Parliament by BHF to showcase his research at the All Party Parliamentary Group for Life Sciences. He is also a cardiologist-in-training in the North West London deanery, specialising in electrophysiology and devices.

Kenneth Chan
Kenneth is a Clinical Research Training Fellow in cardiology supported by British Heart Foundation. Following an academic-clinical training path, his current research focuses on non-invasive imaging of the heart, vessels and fat tissue using Computed Tomography (CT) scans. He also manages the international collaboration and analysis of health information from >200,000 patients in the Oxford Risk Factors and Non-Invasive imaging (ORFAN) study. Using machine learning techniques, Kenneth aim to extract the hidden prognostic information from routinely performed imaging tests beyond their current diagnostic purpose. The novel approach would help us with early disease detection and guide preventive treatments for cardiovascular disease.

Kevin Cheng
Kevin is a BHF Clinical Research Training Fellow at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London and a Cardiology Registrar in the North West London Deanery. He graduated from the University of Oxford and undertook his early postgraduate cardiology training in London through an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship. Kevin’s research focuses on interventional cardiology, assessment of the coronary microcirculation (the small arteries supplying blood to the heart muscle not visible on an angiogram), and novel therapies for refractory angina. Through his BHF Clinical Research Training Fellowship he is undertaking a PhD using state-of-the-art invasive and non-invasive techniques to investigate the effect of the coronary sinus reducer, an hourglass-shaped device, on the coronary microcirculation in patients with life-limiting angina due to coronary microvascular dysfunction. Through this work, he aims to identify mechanisms whereby this interventional treatment may improve patients’ symptoms and quality of life.

Luke Spray
Luke graduated from Newcastle University in 2018 and has stayed in the North-East for his postgraduate training, including an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship in cardiology. He is currently taking time out from cardiology training to complete a PhD at Newcastle University, supported by a BHF Clinical Research Training Fellowship. He is using full-spectrum flow cytometry and cardiovascular MRI to study the role of the immune system in patients with heart failure, with the goal of translating our understanding of cell-mediated immunity from animal models to patients.

Nicholas Black
Nicholas is currently undertaking a PhD under the supervision of Prof. Chris Miller, investigating the role of myocardial fibrosis (as measured by cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging extracellular volume) in early heart failure. He has been awarded a BHF Clinical Research Training Fellowship to undertake this research. He is running 'Detecting EARLY Heart Failure in Greater Manchester (EARLY-HF)', a prospective observational cohort study aimed at developing a risk prediction model for incident heart failure in primary care (www.earlyhf.org). This study has been funded by Innovate UK through the Greater Manchester Innovation Accelerator programme. Prior to undertaking his PhD, Nicholas undertook his medical training at the University of Oxford. Subsequently, he undertook general medical training as an Academic Foundation Doctor and Core Medical Trainee in the North West Deanery, before being awarded an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship in Cardiology in 2020.

Oliver Jones
Oliver is a BHF Clinical Research Fellow undertaking a PhD at Hammersmith Hospital and the National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London. He read the Medical Sciences Tripos at Jesus College, Cambridge, before completing clinical training at University College London. Oliver’s research is primarily focused on the development and clinical testing of a novel computational activation mapping technology invented at Imperial College London, called RETRO-Mapping. This work aims to offer clinicians a new tool to visualise the patterns of electrical activity driving atrial fibrillation, with the ultimate goal of improving both our understanding of the disease and the efficacy of catheter ablation procedures.

MBPhD Studentships

Anna Kamdar
Anna is currently a British Heart Foundation MBPhD Fellow and a medical student at the University of Glasgow. Before starting her MBPhD, she completed a BSc(Hons) in Biomedical Sciences at Newcastle University and an intercalated MMedSci in Cardiovascular Science at the University of Glasgow. Her current PhD research, supervised by Professor Colin Berry and Professor Nigel Jamieson, focuses on how COVID-19 affects the vasculature and explores the longer-term impact and role in post-COVID-19 syndromes. This work is linked to the ongoing Chief Scientist Office Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Imaging in SARS Coronavirus disease-19 (CISCO-19) study.

Immediate Postdoctoral Basic Science Research Fellowships

Chlöe Armour
Chlöe, based at Imperial College London (ICL), specialises in image-based computational modelling of cardiovascular diseases. She completed her PhD in Chemical Engineering, in which she developed novel computational fluid models, using clinical data such as CT, MRI, echocardiogram, and ECG scans, to evaluate aortic dissection. Chlöe was awarded an ICL BHF Centre of Research Excellence Fellowship in 2023, and is now a BHF Immediate Research Fellow, translating and developing her models to improve diagnosis, risk stratification, and understanding of disease development in pulmonary hypertension. Her work focuses on building models tuned to each individual patient, to aide in personalised clinical management.

Ian McCracken 
Ian is an Immediate Postdoctoral Basic Science Research Fellow at the Institute of Developmental and Regenerative Medicine, University of Oxford. The award of this fellowship followed Dr McCracken completing a PhD at the University of Edinburgh in which he explored the transcriptional changes during the differentiation of endothelial cells from human stem cells. The research in Dr McCracken’s fellowship focuses on understanding the mechanisms controlling the formation of coronary endothelial cells in the developing heart. These cells are crucial in providing an adequate blood supply to the thickening heart muscle. Improved understanding of these processes in the embryo will inform future therapeutic strategies aimed to reactivate these developmental mechanisms in the adult heart to stimulate blood vessel growth after a heart attack. 

Kathryn McGurk
Kathryn is a Cardiovascular Geneticist and Bioinformatician. She completed her bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences (Genetics) at Trinity College Dublin and her PhD in Cardiovascular Sciences with Prof Bernard Keavney and Prof Anna Nicolaou at the University of Manchester. She moved to Imperial College London (ICL) to work with Prof. James Ware and Prof. Declan O’Regan, analysing genetic, phenotypic, imaging, and clinical outcome data of population datasets and multicentre patient cohorts. She was awarded an ICL BHF Centre of Research Excellence Junior Fellowship in 2021 and a BHF Immediate Research Fellowship in 2023. For her Immediate Fellowship, Kathryn is studying cardiac trabeculation in adults: identifying the genetic and phenotypic modifiers of trabeculation and whether it is adaptive or causal in disease.

Osman Shabir
Osman is a neuroscientist at the University of Sheffield who investigates the link between atherosclerosis and dementia, with a specific focus on neuroinflammation. He completed his PhD in 2020 investigating neurovascular function in models of atherosclerosis and Alzheimer’s supervised by Prof Sheila Francis & Dr Jason Berwick. In 2023, Osman was awarded a BHF Immediate Postdoctoral Basic Science Research Fellowship at the University of Sheffield in which he will test anti-inflammatory medications in these models to determine whether targeting inflammation caused by atherosclerosis can rescue neuropathology and improve cognitive outcomes. 

BHF-Daphne Jackson Trust Fellowships

Ami Ketley
Ami is a BHF-funded Daphne Jackson Research Fellow, based at the University of Nottingham. Her research interests to date have been in congenital heart disorders and the neuromuscular condition, myotonic dystrophy. Ami's fellowship project combines these two interests and aims to investigate the cardiac symptoms present in myotonic dystrophy patients, using bioinformatic techniques to understand the underlying molecular pathways, with the aim to use this information to improve treatment options for patients. 

Jocelyn Auger
Jocelyn is a BHF-funded Daphne Jackson Fellow, working in the labs of Steve Thomas and Natalie Poulter at the University of Birmingham.  Her research interests lie in thrombosis, specifically in understanding the detailed interactions between platelets, blood vessels and other cells.  Jocelyn’s current project involves incorporating endothelial cells into an in vitro microfluidic flow model, to develop a tool for application of novel imaging techniques.

Loreena Hill
Loreena is currently employed as a Reader in the School of Nursing & Midwifery, Queen’s University. Her personal research interests focus on Heart Failure, in particular patients with an implanted cardiac device and those in advanced/palliative stages of HF. She commenced a Career Development Research Fellowship (for Nurses & Healthcare Professionals) funded by the BHF in April 2023. This project will co-design and test within Belfast and Clydebank, a digital intervention providing information and support to patients with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator.  

Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowships

Alexandre Slater
Alexandre completed his PhD at the University of Nottingham, studying protein-protein interactions that initiate the coagulation cascade. He moved to the University of Birmingham to study the structure of platelet receptor glycoprotein VI and characterise novel nanobody inhibitors. Alexandre was awarded an Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowship in 2024 to study the full-length structures of platelet glycoproteins in the membrane and the mechanisms of their activation. His aim is to use this knowledge to develop novel anti-thrombotic therapies.

Ana Vujic
Ana, an Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, Department of Medicine (VPD- HLRI), specialises on investigating how mitochondrial redox and metabolism influence cardiac remodelling during exercise and heart failure. Ana’s team is passionate about exploring how the body’s natural adaptations to exercise can be leveraged to combat cardiometabolic diseases. Ana earned her PhD at the University of Cambridge, exploring DNA methylation in cardiomyopathy. She subsequently did a post-doc at National University of Singapore, and on cardiac regeneration and exercise at Harvard University. She was recruited to Cambridge as a BHF-CRE-Career Development fellow (2020).

Cherrie Kong
Cherrie is a Lecturer in Physiology at the University of Bristol and a BHF Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellow. Her group focuses on understanding how excitation-contraction coupling changes in health and disease, with a particular focus on sub-cellular Ca2+ movements and structures. Cherrie's training involved postdoctoral and PhD work in the labs of Prof. Clive H. Orchard and Prof. Mark B. Cannell, as well as Data Science work in industry. She values mentorship and outreach and is a key member of the Bristol Heart Festival organising committee.

Christopher Derrick
Chris is a developmental biologist whose current work aims to understand the genetic basis for structural heart defects, the most common abnormality present at birth. His fellowship focuses on understanding the origins of Bicuspid Aortic Valve (BAV), a condition where the valve that regulates blood flow from the heart to the rest of the body forms incorrectly in the developing embryo. Chris' research involves functionally testing mutations identified in patients with BAV to determine if they cause the disease. He completed his undergraduate and master's degrees at Cambridge, his PhD at Sheffield, and his post-doctoral research at Newcastle, where he started his Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellowship in 2025.

Dorien Kimenai 
Dorien is an Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She has expertise in clinical epidemiology, healthcare data, cardiac biomarkers, and advanced statistical modeling. Her research interests focus on the prevention of cardiovascular disease. In 2023, Dorien was awarded her fellowship to develop a dynamic risk estimation system for the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease. By bringing precision medicine to primary care, she aims to provide individualised strategies that will reduce inequalities in the provision of care.

Naveed Akbar
Naveed is an Associate Professor of Cardiovascular Science and an Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. His research explores how extracellular vesicles (EVs) drive cardiovascular and metabolic inflammation. Specifically, his team investigates how endothelial cell-derived EVs enable long-range communication between organs following a heart attack. By decoding this intricate signaling, they aim to develop targeted therapies and diagnostic tools. Naveed has been actively involved in public engagement, coordinating Oxford's Pint of Science for the past 11 years to make research accessible to wider audiences.

Salvatore Santamaria
Salvatore is an Intermediate Basic Science Research Fellow at the University of Surrey.  His project focus on the identification of biomarkers for thoracic aortic aneurysms using label free and label-dependent proteomics. In particular, he is interested on the regulation of extracellular matrix proteoglycans by ADAMTS proteases. Salvatore obtained his PhD from Imperial College London in 2014 and carried out post-doctoral research both at Imperial and the University of Oxford before being awarded his fellowship in 2021. In 2019, he received the Young Investigator Award by the British Society for Matrix Biology for his contributions to the field.

Intermediate Clinical Research Fellowships

Andrew Lewis
Andrew is an academic cardiologist based at the Oxford Heart Centre and the University of Oxford. He trained in leading heart centres worldwide in London, Auckland, and Oxford, and, with BHF support, also undertook a postdoctoral research fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Work in his research group in Oxford uses imaging across spatial scales – from whole heart to within individual heart cells – to understand how and why human hearts fail, and to develop better diagnostics and medicines. Current projects are studying interactions between immune cells in hearts, and energy generating mitochondria. The group also develops innovative imaging endpoints for experimental medicine clinical trials, aiming to get effective medicines to patients faster. 

David Lloyd
David is a Consultant in Paediatric and Fetal Cardiology at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital. He previously led the validation and clinical translation of novel motion-corrected 3D fetal cardiac MRI methods, published in the Lancet in 2019, which led in turn to the delivery of one of the world’s first clinical fetal cardiac MRI programmes at the Evelina London, which he now co-administrates. In 2022 he was awarded an Intermediate Clinical Research Fellowship from British Heart Foundation to explore the relationship between the placental function, left sided congenital heart disease (particularly coarctation of the aorta), and long-term cardiovascular health.

Emma Yu
Emma is an Intermediate Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests are in mitochondria and atherosclerosis. Mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells, generating fuel- in the form of ATP- which cells then use to function. If mitochondria are damaged this can affect cellular function and ultimately lead to disease. One disease where mitochondria are dysfunctional is atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is important as it can cause heart attacks and strokes. Emma’s work is focused on examining what factors regulate mitochondrial function in atherosclerosis and if targeting these pathways has beneficial effects.

Rasha Al-Lamee
Rasha is an Interventional Cardiology Consultant at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and a Reader at the National Heart and Lung Institute within Imperial College London. She is an Intermediate Clinical Research Fellow and clinical trialist with expertise in stable coronary artery disease, coronary intervention, invasive physiology and invasive intravascular imaging. She leads a research group with a focus on clinical trials that impact the care of patients with cardiovascular disease. She believes in rigorous testing of clinical practice and the use of evidence-based medicine in all aspects of medical care. She designed, conducted and led ORBITA, the first randomised placebo-controlled trial of coronary angioplasty, published in The Lancet. She is the chief investigator of the ORBITA-2, ORBITA-STAR, ORBITA-COSMIC and ORBITA-FIRE trials and has over 130 peer-reviewed publications and a h-index of 33. She is actively involved in the development and recruitment for many multi-centre international clinical trials. She is a deputy editor at EuroIntervention and an associate editor at the European Heart Journal. She is the NIHR CRN North West London Cardiovascular speciality lead and co-head of the cardiovascular theme of the Imperial Biomedical Research Centre. She is a Deputy Director of Medicine at Imperial College London.

Shohreh Honarbakhsh 
Shohreh is a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Cardiology at Queen Mary University of London and an Electrophysiology Consultant at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, Barts Heart Centre.  She completed her PhD in Cardiology at Queen Mary University of London in 2019 where she developed a novel mapping technology to guide catheter ablation in persistent atrial fibrillation. Her work resulted in two young investigator awards at the Heart Rhythm Society and Heart Rhythm Congress. Her work also resulted in the invention of the STAR (Stochastic Trajectory Analysis of Ranked signals), mapping system, and she is a co-founder of Rhythm AI Ltd. Her research now focuses on understanding the remodelling processes in atrial fibrillation and how these processes trigger and drive atrial fibrillation. She is utilising these findings to establish and evaluate personalised ablation strategies for atrial fibrillation with the goal to enhance the success rate of catheter ablation procedures for atrial fibrillation.

Senior Basic Science Research Fellowships

Daniel Stuckey
Daniel is Professor of Cardiovascular Imaging at UCL; a British Heart Foundation Senior Basic Science Research Fellow; and Deputy Director of The UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging. Daniel's team develop and apply novel multi-modality imaging approaches for guiding and enhancing the efficacy of regenerative biomaterial therapies for cardiovascular disease.  Using serial cardiac MRI, ultrasound, photo-acoustic imaging and PET/SPECT/CT, Daniel investigates the mechanisms that underlie cardiac disease and result in heart failure.  Prior to joining UCL in 2013, Daniel studied for his DPhil at The University of Oxford as was a postdoctoral fellow at Imperial College London. 

Duncan Sparrow
Duncan Sparrow completed his PhD at the University of Adelaide in the field of the regulation of tissue-specific transcription. He moved to the National Institute for Medical Research in Mill Hill for his first postdoc, where he worked with Dr Tim Mohun on the developmental biology of heart and skeletal muscle formation in Xenopus laevis. He then returned to Australia as a Senior Research Scientist in Professor Sally Dunwoodie's group at the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Sydney. There he investigated the genetic and environmental causes of congenital heart disease (CHD) and congenital vertebral malformation. In 2015, he set up his own research group at the University of Oxford to continue his research on the genetic and environmental causes of CHD, funded by the Oxford BHF Centre of Research Excellence, and a Senior Basic Science Research Fellowship. 

Helle Jørgensen
Helle is a Senior Basic Science Research Fellow funded by British Heart Foundation at the University of Cambridge. Helle has a PhD in Molecular Biology from Aarhus, Denmark, and applies her expertise on cellular memory to understand heart disease. Her team studies how cells in our artery walls contribute to the dangerous fatty plaques that cause heart attacks and strokes.  The team found that only a small number of specific pre-existing cells start multiplying and expanding, building up most of the plaque. They've also found important differences between individual cells within these plaques and in healthy arteries. Understanding these specific "problem cells" and their unique features is important for developing more personalised ways to predict an individual's risk of heart attack or stroke and for creating more effective, targeted treatments to stop these diseases.

Svetlana Reilly
Svetlana is a BHF Senior Research Fellow and an Associate Professor of Cardiovascular Science at University of Oxford. She graduated from medical school in 1998, and following >7 years of clinical practice in internal medicine, she fully transitioned to basic science in 2006. Since her DPhil (Oxford University), she pursues a long-term interest in research into myocardial adverse remodelling in the context of atrial fibrillation and cardiac fibrosis. Specifically, the Reilly lab focuses of the molecular mechanisms involving GPCRs, microRNAs and structural proteins (e.g., filamin A) in fibroblast and myocytes (patho)biology, and on drug discovery applied to cardiac fibrogenesis and arrhythmia. 

Senior Clinical Science Fellowships

Costas Christodoulides
Costas is a Senior Clinical Research Fellow and Honorary Consultant in Endocrinology and Diabetes at the University of Oxford. He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, followed by clinical academic training in Oxford and an Intermediate BHF Fellowship. His research investigates how obesity contributes to type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease, with a focus on the molecular regulation of adipocyte number and fat distribution. His team combines human genetics, physiology, and adipose cell biology to identify novel therapeutic targets. Recent work has highlighted roles for WNT and TGF-beta signalling pathways in shaping fat distribution and cardiometabolic risk.