Our interest in functional genetic variation in relation to mucins and to the lactase gene led to particular focus on the respiratory and gastrointestinal tract and involvement in research into inflammatory disease focussing on these organs.
NSHD
Exploiting the DNA resource that my group prepared for the National Survey for Health and Development we have been involved in several studies that concern the role of genes encoding inflammatory mediators as well as mucins (Wadsworth et al., 2004; Rousseau et al., 2006; Black et al., 2009; Johnson et al., 2013)
DMEs
A further overlapping interest is that of drug metabolising enzymes (DMEs) particularly UGT1A1 for which there is a regulatory polymorphism that affects serum bilirubin levels (Horsfall et al., 2011a; 2011b)
This experience led to a study of DME variability in London, where we examined allele frequencies in groups of different self-declared ethnicity and Country of origin. We showed, as expected, large differences, but that the NHS ethnicity classifications were not useful for people of immediate African ancestry (Ingram et al., 2020)