Dr Eleanor Raffan BVM&S PhD DipECVIM-CA MRCVS

Interests

I am interested in the neural control of energy homeostasis in the body. We study canine models of obesity to discover new genes linked to obesity and interrogate the mechanisms in which genetic variation can influence neural control of metabolism.

Dogs are a good model organism for these studies because selective breeding has resulted an unusual genetic architecture which makes mapping disease associated loci remarkably tractable compared to in human populations. We study pet dogs and use comparative genomics to identify obesity genes. The mechanism of action and physiological consequences of variants of interest are tested in the lab in cellular models, and at a whole-dog level by examining their effect on eating behaviour and physiology.

I am a veterinary surgeon with specialist clinical qualifications in small animal medicine. I am based at the Institute of Metabolic Science but our canine studies are carried out at the Dept. Veterinary Medicine.

Research Focus

Equipment

Behavioural analysis

Computational modelling