I am an Associate Professor in Genetic Epidemiology at the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol. My research is focused on the genetic aetiology of atopic dermatitis and related traits.

I am a leading member of the EAGLE eczema consortium, which brings together studies from around the world with eczema and genetic data in order to conduct large-scale research. Our aim is to identify genetic variants associated with eczema in order to improve understanding of the disease and inform therapeutic development. We have published two large genome-wide association studies for eczema, the largest of which (Paternoster et al., 2015, Nature Genetics) studied 21,000 cases and identified 10 novel risk loci for the disease, bringing the total number of established loci to 31 (24 in Europeans). I am also interested in sub-classes of atopic dermatitis and have worked with latent class analysis to determine longitudinal patterns of the disease throughout childhood and have keen interest in determining genetic risk factors for progression of the disease and response to treatment.

I work with a number of datasets:

- ALSPAC (The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children)

- UK Biobank

- EAGLE eczema consortium

Methods:

- Genome-wide association studies

- Target identification

- Mendelian Randomization for causal inference

- Genetics of disease progression