Tina’s background is in genetics, having completed an undergraduate degree in Human Genetics at UCL, and going on to attain a PhD in Professor Hingorani’s laboratory in cardiovascular genetics. The focus of her PhD was in evaluating the role of C-reactive protein in the prediction and pathogenesis of coronary disease. During her PhD and postdoctoral work, she has focussed on a number of genetic and epidemiological approaches, including integrating information on genotype and/or phenotypes (including detailed information on blood biomarkers) in large population studies using meta-analysis, to address several fundamental issues in cardiovascular disease (CVD) including:

• the utility of certain novel biomarkers (including CRP) for prediction of CVD events
• the causal relevance of certain novel biomarkers in atherosclerosis and CVD
• the mechanisms underlying the associations between single nucleotide variation and CVD risk uncovered recently by genome wide association studies (GWAS)