Rate My Professor Anna Guyatt

Dr Anna Guyatt is a Lecturer in Epidemiology and Genetic Epidemiology in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the University of Leicester. She earned her MBChB with Distinction from the University of Bristol in 2013, an intercalated BSc (Hons) 1st Class in Pharmacology in 2009, and a PhD in Molecular, Genetic and Lifecourse Epidemiology through the Wellcome Trust 4-year programme in 2017, also from Bristol. Joining the University of Leicester in 2017 as a postdoctoral research associate in the Genetic Epidemiology Group, she focused on identifying common genetic variants associated with lung function. In 2019, she received fellowships from the Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund and the British Heart Foundation Accelerator Award to explore causal relationships between cardiorespiratory comorbidity and air pollution exposure. Since 2020, she has contributed to the development of longitudinal cohorts including the EXCEED study and UK-REACH study, and served as a member of the Wellcome Longitudinal Population Studies COVID-19 Steering Group, aiding in questionnaire design on pandemic impacts to health and wellbeing.

Guyatt's research interests encompass Mendelian randomization analyses to investigate causality in multimorbidity, particularly cardiorespiratory traits; epidemiological studies of mental health and wellbeing among healthcare workers and the general population, including during COVID-19; and the use of longitudinal cohorts for genetic and environmental epidemiology. She has co-led major consortium-based genetic association studies and supervises projects on Mendelian randomization and mental health. Key publications include 'New genetic signals for lung function highlight pathways and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease associations across multiple ancestries' (Nature Genetics, 2019), 'Mendelian randomisation of eosinophils and other cell types in relation to lung function and disease' (Thorax, 2023), 'The United Kingdom Research study into Ethnicity And COVID-19 outcomes in Healthcare workers (UK-REACH): protocol for a prospective longitudinal cohort study' (BMJ Open, 2021), and 'Genome-wide analysis of mitochondrial DNA copy number reveals loci implicated in nucleotide metabolism, platelet activation, and megakaryocyte proliferation' (2022). A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2021, she teaches on the MBChB Population and Social Sciences module, though she has pursued an exclusively epidemiological career since medical graduation.