Meet the Team
Please find information and links to our team's University pages below
Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine
Professor Bernard Keavney
Bernard is a British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at The University of Manchester, and a Consultant Cardiologist at Manchester University Hospitals Foundation Trust.  He is also Honorary Professor of Medicine at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. His main research interest is in the genetics of complex cardiovascular diseases.  He has made many contributions to this field.  Most recently he and his colleagues published the world's first genome-wide studies of congenital heart disease, which have identified regions of the human genome that are important in heart development.  He has also contributed to the identification of novel genes for inherited diseases by next-generation sequencing. Bernard practised as a Consultant Interventional Cardiologist between 2000 and 2013, maintaining a very active practice (in the top 10% of all national operators by procedure volume) alongside his research programme. More recently, his clinical focus is on genetic cardiovascular diseases where, together with colleagues, he seeks to implement an integrated research-driven service, drawing on local excellence in genetics and clinical cardiology, for affected families. Bernard currently contributes to the research community through his service on the UK Medical Research Council's Population and Systems Medicine Board and as the Chair of the UK Biobank International Scientific Advisory Board. He has held a number of similar positions previously in his career, including National Lead for the Cardiovascular Domain of the Genomics England Clinical Interpretation Partnership (GeCIP).
Laboratory Manager
Dr Chris Platt
Chris has a BSc in Zoology from the University of Nottingham and a PhD in Cell Biology from the University of East Anglia. After his PhD he worked in industry (Renovo plc, Manchester) as a Senior Scientist, where he developed cell-based assays to model tissue fibrosis and test preclinical drugs. Following this he worked as a Research Associate in academia. Firstly, at the University of Central Lancashire, where he characterised stem cells from children’s teeth, and secondly, at the University of Manchester, where he studied mechanisms of hair growth and photoageing in collaboration with Walgreens Boots Alliance and Unilever.
Research Fellow
Dr. Richard Monaghan
Richard is a specialist Molecular and Cell Biologist with a broad and detailed understanding of human population genetics and genomics. His latest work focuses on the pathological action of disease predisposing variants in rare conditions of the cardiovascular system, specifically familial congenital heart defects. Richard has over ten years postdoctoral experience, supervising and mentoring multiple PhD, Masters’, and Medical Degree lab-based research projects. His early research career began with first author publications in the world leading Nature Cell Biology journal, looking at regulation of subcellular metabolic homeostasis with links to mammalian healthspan, along with a timely companion review article, surmising a global molecular mechanistic concept that has become widely accepted. As well as being the PDRA Representative for his Division, and an Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Champion for his School, Richard also contributes directly to undergraduate teaching as a second year Biomedical Sciences tutor.
Research Associate
Dr. Steph Baross
Steph is a bioinformatician who focuses on using large sequencing cohorts to identify potentially pathogenic variants in congenital heart disease and other cardiovascular conditions. This allow new genes & variants involved in these diseases to be discovered.
Research Associate
Dr. Gennadiy Tenin
Gennadiy uses large-scale genetic data from patients with congenital heart defects to find mutated genes leading to the disease. He then uses a mammalian animal model (mice) to both confirm the effect of the mutations and understand the molecular mechanisms governed by the genes involved in cardiac development.
Doctoral Fellow (PGR) and Cardiology Specialist Registrar
Dr. Fahmida Mannan
First Year Doctoral Student and NHS Cardiology Specialist Registrar, supervised by Professor Bernard Keavney (Manchester) and Dr. Guillaume Paré (McMaster University, Canada), funded by Excellence in Diversity Academic Scholarship and the BHF. Previous NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship (2020-2023). Research interests include biomarkers in CVD, bioinformatics and large-scale datasets in multi-ethnic population cohorts. X: @tachycardio
Health Data Scientist
Dr. Farideh Jalali
Dr. Farideh Jalali is a ‘Health Data Scientist’ with a PhD in Computer Science from Manchester University. With a background in machine learning and healthcare, Farideh has contributed to numerous projects focused on multimorbidity, disease prediction, automating clinical task and note and the stability and applicability of machine learning methods in clinical settings. Farideh specialises in working with large datasets, including electronic health records (EHRs), and applying advanced machine learning and statistical techniques to uncover meaningful insights from complex health data. Her current research involves clustering patient pathways with congenital heart disease (CHD) using the SAIL Databank and CPRD, aiming to explore multimorbidity patterns and inform better clinical decision-making. Farideh’s work is inherently multidisciplinary, bridging the gap between clinicians and data scientists to drive innovation in healthcare. Her expertise and collaborative approach enable the integration of cutting-edge data science methods into real-world healthcare challenges, advancing our understanding and treatment of complex diseases. X:@faridehJalali
Bioinformatician
Dr. Simon Williams
Simon is a bioinformatician. His role is to contribute to the analysis of large-scale genomics experiments, which involve: whole-exome and whole-genome sequencing, RNA sequencing, and microarray analyses.
Research Assistant
Miss Claudia-Ioana Fifirig
Claudia is a research assistant with an interest in investigating the molecular underpinning of cardiovascular development and the resulting congenital diseases when the developmental processes go wrong. Currently she is working alongside other members of our lab on a project focused on analysing the involvement of an epigenetic modifier gene in CHD.
Honorary Research Associate
Dr. Simon Frain
Dr Frain, after a medical career in cardiology and then general practice, has worked in the Keavney Group on several projects. These range from a project deeply rooted in genomics through to electronic healthcare record-based research using data from the half a million participants in UK Biobank and the 13 million patients in one of the UK’s Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) data sets as seen in the publications listed below. His skills include data analysis using R; describing the relevance of medical conditions to individual pieces of research; and assessing the medical and health policy implications of results.
Research Associate
Dr. Yingjuan Liu
Yingjuan is looking into the biological function of long non-coding RNA with in vitro human cell line models. The aim of her work is to understand the regulatory function of lncRNA in cardiovascular development. Yingjuan uses GapmeR and CRISPR/Cas9 technologies to induce the repression or deletion of lncRNA and, thus, determine its influence on core cardiac gene networks and the process of cardiomyocyte differentiation.
A*STAR PhD Student
Mr. Dom Byrne
Dom's project focuses on using UK Biobank data to train deep-learning models to predict CHD risk from patient genomic data with a view to improving genetic counselling capabilities and identifying novel genetic factors. As part of the A*STAR PhD programme, Dom will spend two years in Singapore.
Vacancies
Should you wish to enquire about any vacancies please get in touch via the details listed on the contact page and/or by consulting the following two links, thank you.
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