Congratulations to Dr Megan Leask, who has been awarded a Māori Health Research Postdoctoral Fellowship to work on reducing the burden of Metabolic disease in Māori.
Metabolic disease is twice as likely to affect Māori compared to other populations in New Zealand and affects this population at an earlier age, leading to greater morbidity, disability and lower life expectancy. The large burden of metabolic disease in Māori suggests that a sizeable component can be attributed to genetics and that this population has a unique set of genetic variants that predispose them to metabolic disease. The aim of this project is to develop a discovery pipeline that leads to the comprehensive identification of functional, clinically and pharmacologically relevant genetic variants that underlie metabolic disease in Māori. Thus the proposed research will lead to improved medical approaches for Māori via the integration of genomics into healthcare.
The $284,599 will fund Megan's salary and working expenses for two years.