Associate Professor - Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science
Director, Metabolic and Cardiovascular Diseases Laboratory

Research Interests

My research involves understanding more about the link between Nutrition and the dietary-related chronic diseases such as Obesity, Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease (CAD). ‘Bad' or LDL-type cholesterol produced by the liver is thought to be the reason that arteries accumulate lipid deposits and become blocked during CAD and diabetes. However, as many as half of the subjects diagnosed with CAD have normal levels of LDL-cholesterol, suggesting that other types of cholesterol can contribute to the ‘atherogenic' process. We have been the first to demonstrate that intestinal lipoproteins (chylomicrons) that function to transport dietary cholesterol, are involved in the accumulation of lipid in arterial vessels. Our group uses a number of techniques to investigate the metabolism of cholesterol-rich chylomicron particles, to further understand their role in nutritional and chronic disease.