Complex Diseases Webinar - New Date Added
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We’re excited to announce that we’ve added a new date to our Complex Diseases Webinar Series! Our third speaker is Dr Cristina Fortuno with her talk entitled "Genetic testing for health and wellness: a commercial experience using GSA.”
Dr Cristina Fortuno
Tuesday, December 8th, 12:30pm - 1:30pm (AEST)
Dr Cristina Fortuno (MSc, PhD) holds a Master of Science in Biotechnology from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain. After gaining experience working in a reproductive genetics laboratory as a research assistant, she received a scholarship to pursue a PhD in Human Genetics at the University of Queensland, Australia. Cristina co-authored 3 peer-reviewed journal articles during her undergraduate studies, and published 7 additional articles as a first author during her PhD. She is currently working as the Product Development Lead at Fitgenes, an Australian-based genetic testing company focused on health and wellness.
Cristina is strongly motivated by the use of genomics in health care, as a tool to improve diagnosis, deliver personalised interventions, and find out more about an individual’s predisposition to certain health traits.
Other upcoming webinars in the series
Prof. Simon Laws
Thursday 3 December, 10:30am AWST
Our second speaker is Professor Simon Laws who will present a talk titled ‘Exploring the impact of gene combinations and gene-lifestyle interactions on Alzheimer’s Disease progression.’
Biography
Professor Simon Laws completed his PhD at the University of Western Australia in 2003. He spent his early postdoctoral career in Germany at the Technical University of Munich before returning to Australia in 2009. He is currently the Associate Dean of Medical and Exercise Science within Edith Cowan University’s School of Medical and Health Sciences. Prof Laws also leads the Collaborative Genomics and Translation Group, part of ECU’s forthcoming Centre for Precision Health for which he is the designated director of.
His research primarily focuses on understanding genomic (including genetic variation, epigenetic change and transcriptomic) influences on Alzheimer’s Disease risk and progression and their impact on Alzheimer’s disease related phenotypes, such as rates of change in memory performance and development of pathological features. This includes the validation of existing and development of novel polygenic risk scores, with a particular emphasis on the preclinical stages of disease.
Prof. Laws has published over 135 peer-reviewed journal articles and attracted research funding from both industry and nationally competitive funding bodies, such as the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). He recently received NHMRC funding to develop risk and resilience profiles for Alzheimer’s disease that incorporate genomic data with modifiable lifestyle factors and to explore the interaction of these and their impact on risk and progression of the disease.
