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Contact Details

Email
mormi526@student.otago.ac.nz
Position
PhD Student
Department
Department of Physiology
Qualifications
BSc(Hons)
Research summary
Māori and Pacific-specific genetic variations that increase the risk of immune-related diseases

Research

My PhD focuses on Māori and Pacific-specific genetic variations that increase the risk of immune-related diseases like gout. My goal is to better understand how these genetic differences contribute to inflammatory diseases, improve our knowledge of the immune system, and help develop more personalised medical treatments for everyone.

Publications

Calhoun, C., Darroch, H., Hussain, R., Morice, M., Lalonde, R., Mosimann, C., Horsfield, J., & Leask, M. (2026, February). Functional characterisation of Polynesian-enriched non-coding variants utilizing a novel method of zebrafish transgenesis. Verbal presentation at the Genetics Otago (GO) Annual Symposium, Dunedin, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Williams, S., Gibbons, P., Morice, M., & Leask, M. (2025). Prioritisation of Māori and Pacific gout-associated non-coding genetic variants using enhancer assays. Proceedings of the Genetics Otago (GO) Annual Symposium. Retrieved from https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/go Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract

Darroch, H., Mosimann, C., Lalonde, R., Calhoun, C., Morice, E., Ledgerwood, E., … Stamp, L., Merriman, T., Horsfield, J., Wilcox, P., & Leask, M. (2024, August-September). Novel ‘omics and molecular pipelines in zebrafish for precision medicine for and by Māori. Verbal presentation at the 18th New Zealand Medical Sciences Congress (MedSci), Queenstown, New Zealand. Conference Contribution - Verbal presentation and other Conference outputs

Leask, M., Darroch, H., Morice, E., Calhoun, C., Wilcox, P., Horsfield, J., & Merriman, T. (2024). Beyond GWAS and towards precision medicine equity for Indigenous populations. Proceedings of the 17th GeneMappers Conference. Retrieved from https://www.genemappersconference.org Conference Contribution - Published proceedings: Abstract

Morice, E., Calhoun, C., Lalonde, R., & Leask, M. (2024). Zebrafish for the study of enhancer activity in human traits and disease. In G. R. Disner (Ed.), Zebrafish research: An ever-expanding experimental model. (pp. 53-80). London, UK: IntechOpen. doi: 10.5772/intechopen.1003949 Chapter in Book - Research

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