Kate Bennett

I obtained my Masters of Research in Functional Genomics at the University of York, UK. As part of this course I spent 4 months working in a protein analytical group at GlaxoSmithKline, Harlow, UK. My PhD in Biochemistry was carried out at The Institute of Child Health and Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, University College London (UCL). My thesis was entitled ‘The use of proteomics and mass spectrometry to investigate the interactions between proteases and protease inhibitors in the skin barrier’. After my PhD, I spent 2 years working as a Research Associate in the Clinical and Molecular Genetics Unit at the Institute of Child Health, UCL. My project involved studying the genetic causes of unique cases of diabetes and pancreatic abnormalities in children.

I joined the Research team at AcureOmics, based in Umeä, Sweden in September 2011 as part of the BOLD Project. The initial part of my project involves metabolic profiling on patients with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes and maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY) using state-of-the-art mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. The next stage will be to compare the metabolic profiles of diabetic patients and transgenic rodent models harbouring known diabetes-causing genes. If comparable, variations in the metabolic profile of these rodents in response to various treatments will be evaluated. This may allow us to assess whether a patient is likely to respond to a particular treatment in a clinical setting.