Manu Verma

I am a Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Research Fellow interested in adipose tissue biology and the link between obesity and diabetes. I am working with Dr. Costas Christodoulides and Prof. Fredrik Karpe, based at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, Endocrinology & Metabolism, University of Oxford.

The focus of my fellowship is to investigate how WNT signalling and in particular TCF7L2, a key transcription factor in this pathway, modulates white and brown human adipocyte biology and susceptibility to visceral obesity and diabetes. To achieve this, I will use a combination of animal studies, in vitro experiments and human physiological studies involving carriers of common and low frequency TCF7L2 risk variants associated with diabetes and obesity in GWAS.

I completed a (First class) Bachelor’s degree in engineering In India. Followed by a M.Sc. in Medical Genetics (Distinction) from the University of Glasgow where I was supported by a Saltire scholarship. I was then awarded a 4-year Charles Darwin International Scholarship at the University of Edinburgh where I obtained a M.Res. in Biomedical Sciences followed by a Ph.D. in Cardiovascular Sciences at the Deanery of Clinical Sciences. I was awarded several prizes for my PhD research including featured abstract at the Endo, 2015 (San Diego, USA) and the best basic science abstract and highly commendable oral communication at the SfE BES, 2016 (Brighton, UK).