Profile
Prof Nita FOROUHI
Principal Investigator
Prof Nita Forouhi is a physician-scientist, MRC Investigator, head of the Nutritional Epidemiology research programme at the MRC Epidemiology Unit and Professor of Population Health and Nutrition. Prof. Forouhi is the co-lead of the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) theme on Nutrition, Obesity, Metabolism and Endocrinology and for the Diet, Nutrition and Lifestyle Theme. She is also an NIHR Senior Investigator, honorary Public Health Physician with the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) and the Director of Organisational Affairs at the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine.
Prof Forouhi’s research is focused on the link between diet, nutrition and diabetes, obesity and related metabolic disorders and in informing strategies for the prevention of these conditions in European and global populations. She is a principal investigator on longitudinal cohort studies including the EU-FP6 funded EPIC-InterAct, Fenland and SABRE studies, and the EU-FP7 funded InterConnect project and EPICCVD study. She has served as a member of several national and international committees related to health, including the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), serving on the Diabetes Atlas committee, Diabetes UK Research Committee, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), Public Health England, Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) Joint Working Group on lower carbohydrate diets for type 2 diabetes and NHS England Obesity Expert Reference Group. She is a Trustee of the Public Health Genomics Foundation. Committed to building capacity for research, Prof. Forouhi has trained and mentored numerous Masters and PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and specialist trainees in public health.
Prof Forouhi trained as a physician in Newcastle and Edinburgh, qualifying with a BMedSci (First Class Honours), MBBS and MRCP. She then trained as an epidemiologist during a Wellcome Training Fellowship at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, achieving a Masters and PhD and subsequently trained as a Public Health Physician in London and Cambridge, achieving a Fellowship of the UK Faculty of Public Health.
Cambridge
Researchers
HD4
Research Interest
Key Publications
Google Scholar Link
Locke, A., Kahali, B., Berndt, S. et al. Genetic studies of body mass index yield new insights for obesity biology. Nature 518, 197–206 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14177
Go, Alan S., Dariush Mozaffarian, Véronique L. Roger, Emelia J. Benjamin, Jarett D. Berry, Michael J. Blaha, Shifan Dai, et al. ‘Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics—2014 Update: A Report From the American Heart Association’. Circulation 129, no. 3 (21 January 2014). https://doi.org/10.1161/01.cir.0000441139.02102.80.
the DIAbetes Genetics Replication And Meta-analysis (DIAGRAM) Consortium. Large-scale association analysis provides insights into the genetic architecture and pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes. Nat Genet 44, 981–990 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2383
Dupuis, J., Langenberg, C., Prokopenko, I. et al. New genetic loci implicated in fasting glucose homeostasis and their impact on type 2 diabetes risk. Nat Genet 42, 105–116 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.520