Staff

Cox, Vanessa

IT Manager

Cox, Vanessa

Name
Mrs Vanessa Cox
Qualifications
Role
IT Manager

Vanessa Cox joined the then MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit in 1991. Her initial role was as an analyst programmer responsible for IT and data processing aspects of a number of the Unit’s projects, particularly the Hertfordshire Cohort Studies.

Since becoming the IT manager in 2003, Vanessa has been responsible for managing the Unit IT department, a team of programmers, analysts and data entry assistants. Alongside that she handles the management of IT policies and advises on data security and protection within the Unit. Her primary interest is in maintaining the reputation of the Unit for producing high quality research data.

Vanessa Cox's Publications

Crozier, Sarah

Statistician

Crozier, Sarah

Name
Dr Sarah Crozier
Qualifications
PhD
Role
Statistician

Sarah Crozier is a senior medical statistician who has worked extensively on the Southampton Women’s Survey, an internationally-renown cohort study which recruited 12,583 young non-pregnant women living in the city of Southampton. Of these women, 3,158 went on to become pregnant and deliver a live-born singleton infant and the detailed follow-up of the offspring is continuing. The study design (unique in the Western world) allows detailed research into pre-pregnancy and pregnancy influences on offspring health.

Sarah’s research using the Southampton Women’s Survey has focused on women’s health behaviours. She is particularly interested in the application of statistical techniques to describe diet, and has used Principal Component Analysis to develop dietary patterns scores that characterise broad features of women’s, infants’ and children’s diets. The prudent diet score has been a particularly useful means of characterising one of the most important aspects of women’s dietary choices. Sarah has developed a 20-item food frequency questionnaire which enables prudent diet scores to be estimated amongst young women in Southampton.

A further aspect of Sarah’s research has been the investigation of predictors of childhood adiposity. In particular, she has found that low levels of maternal vitamin D and excessive pregnancy weight gain are associated with greater adiposity at age 6.

Sarah is also involved in research into the use of statistical techniques to model growth. She is interested in the application of a variety of techniques to answer clinical questions by using the extensive resource of anthropometric data in the Southampton Women’s Survey cohort.

Sarah Crozier's Publications

Curtis, Beth

Associate Professor

Curtis, Beth

Name
Dr Beth Curtis

Qualifications
MA, BMBCh, MRCP (Rheumatology)

Role
Associate Professor in Rheumatology

Dr Beth Curtis undertook her undergraduate medical training at the University of Oxford, graduating in 2010. Whilst there, she undertook a BA in Medical Sciences, graduating with a first class honours degree and developed interests in both rheumatology and human development.

She joined the Academic Foundation Programme in the Wessex Deanery in 2010, incorporating a research placement at the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit. She completed her MRCP examinations and Core Medical Training at Southampton General Hospital, and then gained an Academic Clinical Fellowship in the Wessex Rheumatology Specialist Training programme in 2014. Continuing her interest in early-life determinants of osteoporosis, in 2016 she was awarded a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Training Fellowship. She is now undertaking her doctoral studies supervised by Professors Cyrus Cooper and Nick Harvey and epigenetics specialists Professor Karen Lillycrop and Dr Christopher Bell. Her research is based on the epigenetic determinants of bone microarchitecture, working on the Southampton Women’s Survey and the MAVIDOS randomised controlled trial of vitamin D supplementation in pregnancy.

She has also contributed to parallel projects on drug safety in various rheumatological conditions, working within a European collaboration, ESCEO, and with the British Society for Rheumatology, in addition to projects on fractures and bone health using data from Clinical Practice Research Datalink and UK Biobank.

Curtis, Sue

Personal Assistant

Curtis, Sue

Name
Mrs Sue Curtis
Qualifications
Role
Personal Assistant

Sue originally joined the MRC in January 1990 as secretary to David Coggon. After a break of just over two years she returned in 2008 and now works as PA to Professor Karen Walker-Bone and is Administrator for the Arthritis Research UK/MRC Centre for Musculoskeletal Health and Work. Sue also provides secretarial support for Professors Hazel Inskip, Mary Barker and Keith Godfrey and Emeritus Professor David Coggon.

In addition, Sue is responsible for maintaining the Unit’s media database, recording all aspects of publicity including public engagement activities, television and radio appearances and press coverage relating to scientific work by members of the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit.

D’Angelo, Stefania

Medical Statistician

D’Angelo, Stefania

Name
Ms Stefania D'Angelo
Qualifications
BSc, MSc.
Role
Medical Statistician

Stefania studied at the University of Bologna (Italy), where she completed a BSc in Statistic and Social Research and then an MSc in Statistical Sciences.

She joined the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit in 2012 and she is currently working on the Health and Employment After Fifty (HEAF) study, a cohort of older workers recruited when aged 50-64, through GP practices in England. The main aims of the study are to explore the impact that health problems have on the ability to work at older ages, and the impact of job loss on people’s health.

Stefania D'Angelo's Publications

Dennison, Elaine

Professor

Dennison, Elaine

Name
Professor Elaine Dennison
Qualifications
MB, BChir, MA, FRCP, MSc, PhD
Role
Professor of Musculoskeletal Epidemiology and Honorary Consultant in Rheumatology

Professor Elaine Dennison is Professor of Musculoskeletal Epidemiology and Honorary Consultant in Rheumatology within Medicine at the University of Southampton. Having worked as a Principal Investigator of the Hertfordshire Cohort Study for many years, her research interest centres around musculoskeletal aging. Based at the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, she is particularly interested in how events early in life interact with adult lifestyle factors to determine how we age.

Professor Dennison is author of over 220 journal articles on this subject.

As a clinical academic with a keen interest in clinical academic training, Professor Dennison was appointed as Director of the Southampton Clinical Academic Training Scheme in 2018; formerly she led the Southampton Academic Foundation training programme and has served as Training Programme Director for Wessex Rheumatology for 5 years. She sits on the rheumatology SAC as the Academic representative.

In the last 5 years she has served as Chair of the National Osteoporosis Society Grants Committee, and as a member of the National Osteoporosis Society Clinical and Scientific Committee. She sits on the International Osteoporosis Foundation Committee of the Scientific Advisers, and chairs the British Society of Rheumatology Biologics Register Steering Committee. She is a clinical member of the Bone Research Society Committee (appointed 2018). Professor Dennison sits on many editorial boards, including Osteoporosis International and Journal of Developmental Health and Adult Disease.

Elaine Dennison's Publications

Dhuria, Preeti

Senior Research Assistant

Dhuria, Preeti

Name
Preeti Dhuria

Qualifications
MSc (Food & Nutrition) RNutr (Public Health)

Role
Senior Research Assistant

Preeti is a registered public health nutritionist. She completed her Masters in food and nutrition from Lady Irwin College, New Delhi, India. She has over eight years of experience in academic research, as well as working in health promotion roles in academia, food industry and community settings.

Since 2007, she has been involved in various projects at the University of Southampton. She worked as a research assistant at the Institute of Human Nutrition, University of Southampton, where she helped to develop a number of e-learning programmes to enhance the competence of the public health workforce.

She joined NIHR Biomedical Research Centre in 2012 and was instrumental in the conception, development and management of a community initiative to reduce vitamin D deficiency in Black and Minority Ethnic Communities in Southampton.

She joined MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit in July 2018. She works on the WRAPPED (Women’s Responses to Adjusted Product Placement and its Effects on Diet) project as a study manager. Her role on the WRAPPED study uses both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to examine the influence of in-store supermarket environment on women’s dietary and food purchasing patterns.

Alongside her role in WRAPPED study, she also works on a qualitative systematic literature review to explore the diet and physical activity behaviours in adolescents as a part of TALENT (Transforming Adolescent LivEs through Nutrition) project.

She is interested in reducing health inequalities through nutrition interventions. Her current scope of practice is to 1) examine the impact of supermarket food environment on women’s dietary and shopping patterns 2) to utilise a systems approach to understand product placement strategies in supermarkets. These would provide an insight into developing interventions which could positively influences dietary behaviors and shopping patterns and inform policy to design supermarket layouts that support health.

Drake, Karen

Unit Office Assistant

Drake, Karen

Name
Miss Karen Drake
Qualifications
Role
Office Assistant

Karen is the Unit Office Assistant

Fall, Caroline

Emeritus Professor

Fall, Caroline

Name
Emeritus Professor Caroline Fall
Qualifications
MBChB, DM, FRCP, FRCPCH
Role
Professor of International Paediatric Epidemiology and Consultant in Child Health

Caroline Fall studied medicine at the University of Bristol, qualifying in 1978, followed by clinical training in General Medicine, General Practice and Paediatrics. She joined the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit (then the Environmental Epidemiology Unit) in 1989, to study the Hertfordshire birth cohort, and showed for the first time that low birthweight and infant weight were associated with an increased risk of insulin resistance and Type 2 diabetes in adult life. Since 1993, she has been working on the fetal and childhood origins of diabetes and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs), mainly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), building up collaborations in several centres in India.

Caroline works with a team of epidemiologists, nutritionists and statisticians investigating the early life origins of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes and the maternal factors influencing fetal growth and later health. Her chief role is to lead a programme of research involving 7 centres in India. These studies include: 1) the follow-up of children and adults whose size at birth and childhood growth were recorded, 2) prospective cohort studies on the short and long-term effects on the offspring of maternal nutritional status and glucose/insulin metabolism during pregnancy, and more recently, 3) randomised studies of interventions to improve maternal nutrition and fetal development, starting pre-conceptionally. She has 230 original research papers and ~40 reviews/book chapters.

Caroline was the moving force and organising secretary for the First World Congress on the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) held in Mumbai, India, February 2001, and has been a member of the scientific planning committees for subsequent DOHaD Congresses, held in Toronto (2005), Santiago, Chile (2009), Portland, Oregon (2011) and Capetown, S Africa (2013). She was secretary of the International DOHaD Society from 2003-2013, and continues to serve on its governing council and education sub-committee. She was awarded the David Barker Medal, the DOHaD society’s highest award for scientific achievement and leadership, in 2013.

Her clinical interests are in Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes, and she is a member of the UHS children’s diabetes team.

Academic responsibilities

Deputy director, Division of Human Development and Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton.
Member, Advisory Group, CLOSER International, University College London. 2018-2020.
Member, Advisory group, NIHR Global Health Research Group (Improving outcomes in sub-Saharan African Diabetes through better diagnosis and treatment), PI Prof Andrew Hattersley, University of Exeter. 2018-2020.
Member, Medical Research Council Nutrition Research Partnership – a panel of nutrition scientists convened by MRC to develop and advise upon future strategy for UK nutrition research (2017-present).
Lead investigator, TALENT consortium (Transforming Adolescent Lives Through Nutrition) (2017-present).
Lead investigator, EMPHASIS study group (Epigenetic mechanisms linking pre-conceptional nutrition and health in India and sub-Saharan Africa) (2015-present).
Member NCD-Risc consortium for global secular trends in cardio-metabolic risk markers (2009-present).
Member, COHORTS collaboration (Consortium for Health-Orientated Research in Transitioning Societies), comprising birth cohort studies in India, Guatemala, Brazil, The Philippines and South Africa (2006-present).
Former Secretary (2003-2013) and member of Governing Council (2003-present), International DOHaD Society.
Member, Sneha-India (Indian Society for Natal Effects on Health in Adults) (1995-present), and co-organiser of 1st to 21st annual Sneha-India workshops on developmental origins of health and disease (1995-present).
Member, 3rd British Nutrition Foundation Task Force on Diet and Cardiovascular Disease (2014-2019).
Member, HEFCE 2014 Research Excellence Framework sub-panel for Public Health, Health Services and Primary Care (2013-2014).
Member, Public Health and Topical Medicine Committee (PHATIC), Wellcome Trust (2010-2015).
Chair, Research Committee (2012-2016) and Member (2010-2017) of the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) – UK consortium for capacity building for public health in India.
Member, GIFTS consortium (Genomic and lifestyle predictors of fetal outcome, diabetes and obesity in S Asian populations; PI: Graham Hitman, QMUL) (2011-2017).
Reviewer for international journals and reviewer/panel member for major granting bodies.

Caroline Fall's Publications

Fitzgerald, Charlotte

Finance Manager

Fitzgerald, Charlotte

Name
Charlotte Fitzgerald
Qualifications
CIMA, Chartered Accountancy
Role
Finance manager

Fuggle, Nicholas

Associate Professor

Fuggle, Nicholas

Name
Dr Nicholas Fuggle

Qualifications
MBBS BSc (hons) MRCP PGCert HBE

Role
Associate Professor in Rheumatology

My interest in medical research first began during my medical degree and intercalated BSc at Imperial College. It further developed throughout my early medical training and led me to a clinical research fellowship at St George’s University London, investigating the role of the oral microbiome in rheumatoid arthritis. I was subsequently awarded an NIHR academic clinical fellowship in rheumatology at the MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit (University of Southampton), researching the epidemiology of musculoskeletal diseases of ageing within the Hertfordshire Cohort (a group of community-dwelling older adults). Here I became acutely aware of the massive global burden of musculoskeletal ageing and fascinated by the role biological age could play in identifying those at risk.

We know that our age in years is not necessarily the same as the age of our body or ‘biological age’. When we think of bone and muscles, some people are running marathons aged 85 and others are unable to walk. A new measure of biological age looks at a particular pattern of genes being switched on or off (epigenetic age) and gives an age of the body, which may be different to conventional age (time from birth).

The title of my Dunhill Medical Trust-funded research training fellowship project is ‘Does epigenetic age acceleration predict future accelerated musculoskeletal ageing?’ Through my PhD, under the supervision of Professor Cyrus Cooper, Professor Elaine Dennison, Professor Keith Godfrey and Dr Chris Bell, I aim to see if a new measure of biological age can be used to see how healthy our bones and muscles will be in the future. If it works, we may be able to identify people who will get weak bones and muscles early, thereby slowing the ageing process.