After his Forensic Anthropology degree, Dr Andrew English completed an MRes at University of Liverpool, where he identified mechanisms behind incretin response in adipose tissue.

He was awarded a PhD in 2018 from the Clinical Translational Research and Innovation Centre (CTRIC), Ulster University (UU), for research which identified multi-omic biomarkers of glycaemic control, comorbidity and response to GLP-1 therapy in Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) patients.

During his first post-doctoral position funded by the European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes, Dr English investigated how single and dual activation of hybrid diabetes peptide hormones affected toxicity, proteomic, genomic and metabolic effects in cell and animal models, at the SAAD Centre for Pharmacy and Diabetes, UU.

Dr English went on to focus his research efforts on the discovery and validation of protein biomarkers which could improve the management of acute and chronic kidney disease patients. During this time at CTRIC, UU, he contributed to the generation of a cross border renal biobank, he also led the lab team on three UU Covid-19 research projects, identifying Covid-19 Northern Ireland (NI) infection rates and geographical locations of concern. Genomic biomarkers of severity (WGS) and the long-term effect of Covid-19 infection on the immune system.  

Currently, his research is progressing at the National Horizons Center, identifying severity biomarkers in T2D cohorts and the mechanisms behind novel obesity treatments. 

Research Interests

Dr English is particularly interested in the pharmacological characterisation of current and novel antidiabetic drugs and the development of new pharmacological targets and prognostic tools to improve the clinical management of T2D patients.  

He has expertise in ‘personalised medicine’ and the use of multiplex proteomic and genomic technologies using cell, animal and human models.  Dr English’s approach is to utilise multi-omic datasets obtained from blood or saliva based assays and incorporate into clinical data to identify biomarkers that will aid clinical decision making.   

Teaching

Course Leader - BSc Health Sciences 

Link tutor - BSc Health Sciences - Managment Development Institute Singapore (MDIS)

Module leader - Human metbolism and Clinical Biochemisty (SCI2009-N-BF1)

Module leader - Experiemtnal Methods for Life Sciences (SCI0003-N-GJ1) 

Key Areas:

• Type 2 diabetes (T2D) management and biomarker discovery
• Metabolic syndrome interactions 
• Multi-omic integration (proteomics, genomics)
• Personalised medicine approaches

Current Projects:

• Identifying severity biomarkers in T2D cohorts
• Investigating mechanisms of novel obesity treatments

Dr English is welcoming researchers with novel ideas to join the Diabetes research team. He is currently open to supervising PhD and postdoctoral researchers with an interest in type 2 diabetes, metabolic disease, and multi-omic biomarker discovery.

He welcomes expressions of interest from candidates aiming to develop competitive applications for diabetes-focused funding schemes, including those offered by Diabetes UK, MRC, and NIHR. Candidates can e-mail with CV & Research Plans directly to [email protected] 

Self-funded PhD students are most welcome to start the discussion ASAP to follow with an interview!