Professor Albert Tenesa

Personal Chair of Quantitative Genetics

Biography

Background

Albert Tenesa studied agricultural engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia before coming to Edinburgh to study an MSc in Quantitative Genetics and Genome Analysis. He then carried out his PhD in quantitative genetics under the supervision of Peter Visscher and Sara Knott at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Edinburgh. After a postdoc with Professor Malcolm Dunlop he became a group leader at the Roslin Institute (where he holds a joint appointment). Albert’s research at the MRC-Human Genetics Unit is aimed to understand how genetic variation contributes to phenotypic variation of complex traits in humans.

 

Qualifications

  • 1999, Polytechnic University of Valencia
  • MSc: 2000, University of Edinburgh
  • PhD: 2003, University of Edinburgh

Research summary

Understanding how genetic variation influences normal and pathological variation in humans.

Current research interests

Albert is investigating how our genes make some of us more susceptible to certain diseases, such as cancer, than others. In the long term this research could be used to predict what diseases individuals are prone to and what age they are likely to develop them. With this information better drugs and preventative treatments could be developed. To investigate this, Albert takes samples from a large number of patients and controls (people without disease). The genomes of these groups are then studied. If proportionally more patients than controls are carrying a certain genotype, it is thought to be increasing their risk of getting the disease. These genetic risk factors are combined with environmental risk factors (e.g. smoking, exercise) to form an idea of what makes people prone to disease. An important part of our research relates to understanding multimorbidity (why people have multiple diseases).

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