St Mary's Academic Leads Obesity Research at Food Matters Live

Academic from the MSc Nutrition and Genetics programme at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, Dr Yiannis Mavrommatis, attended the Food Matters Live conference in London to address delegates and conduct research into genetic predisposition to obesity.

Yiannis spoke at the conference on the topic of How advances in nutrigenomics are opening up opportunities for commercial delivery of personalised nutrition. Yiannis was also on the discussion panel of two more sessions entitled Are consumers ready to embrace new forms of food and nutrition and How should the industry tackle the ethical and regulatory concerns of nutrigenomics and personalised nutrition?

During the conference, Yiannis and PhD students Cat Graham and Leta Pilic were able to undertake research looking into the most common obesity-related gene. The study aims to investigate how the diet of an individual may change after they have been informed whether they have a high genetic predisposition to obesity or not.

Speaking of the conference Yiannis said, “The event was a great success for St Mary’s as it provided us the opportunity to promote the research we are conducting into Nutrition and Genetics. We also had the opportunity to discuss our Nutrition courses that we offer at St Mary’s, with a focus on the new MSc in Nutrition and Genetics, which is the first and only dedicated course of its kind in the UK and Europe, with delegates.”

The MSc in Nutrition and Genetics at St Mary’s aims to educate students in molecular biology principles that explain the interactions between human DNA and nutrition. The degree provides students with the knowledge and understanding of the progress, advantages and limitations of personalised nutrition and gives them the necessary practical skills associated with molecular nutrition techniques.