Laura J Corbin

Since May 2014, I have held the post of Postdoctoral Senior Research Associate in Applied Genetic Epidemiology within the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU) based at the University of Bristol. Research at the MRC IEU is focused on the development of causal analysis methods for application in population-based and clinical health sciences. During my time at Bristol, I have been working under the supervision of Professor Nicholas Timpson, initially on developing a toolkit to facilitate the undertaking of recall-by-genotype experiments and more latterly on research aimed at better understanding how body mass index (BMI) exerts an effect on human health and disease. The main focus of my research is to evaluate the impact of BMI change on the metabolome. This includes the analysis of both nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectrometry (MS) derived metabolite data from randomised control trials (RCT) designed to evaluate the efficacy of both weight management programmes and bariatric surgery in achieving weight loss. Prior to starting my postdoctoral research career at Bristol, I held the post of Research Impact Officer at Cardiff Business School (Oct. 2012 – May 2014). My main responsibility was to work alongside researchers in the school to prepare Impact Case Studies for submission to REF 2014 (Research Excellence Framework) and to develop the school’s research impact strategy going forward. My postgraduate training is in quantitative genetics, with a focus on its application in animal breeding. I completed a four-year PhD under the BBSRC Biosciences KTN CASE PhD scheme, graduating in 2013. My thesis was entitled: ‘The application of genomic technologies to the horse’. As part of my training I completed a PGDip (with Distinction) in Quantitative Genetics and Genome Analysis.