Supervisor View 2021-2022

• genetics, genomics and molecular biology
• epidemiology/population health research
• nutrition
• global health/inclusion health

• Ophthalmology
• Public Health

• Dementia
• Nephrology

My main research interests include biomarker discovery associated with microvascular dysfunction in diabetes and its complications. These investigations have evaluated data from non-invasive retinal imaging and other novel biomarkers to identify early microvascular decline in ‘at risk’ individuals. Additional interests include identification of (epi)genetic risk factors associated with diabetic complications, dementia and other chronic diseases, including nutrigenomics, socioeconomic factors and serum carotenoid and antioxidant levels, particularly vitamin E ,and their impact on disease. I have co-authored >130 peer-reviewed publications.

Why do kidney transplants fail so early in young people?

Aim: To explore whether the difference in long-term kidney transplant outcomes between younger recipients (< 30 years old) vs older recipients (≥30 years old) is associated with variations in clinical epidemiological risk factors, proteomic profiles and subsets of key immunological cell types.

Objectives:
1.) Identifying key clinical epidemiological factors associated with long-term transplant outcomes and variation in these risk factors between younger and older kidney transplant recipients.
2.) Investigation of proteomic profiles in younger transplant recipients with and without evidence of transplant immunological injury and comparison with older recipients with and without evidence of transplant immunological injury.
3.) Investigation of the variance in subsets of key immunological cell types (T-regulatory, B-regulatory and natural killer cells) between kidney transplant recipients <30 and ≥30 years old with functioning kidney transplants.

Professor Peter Maxwell
Professor Mathew Griffin