Neil Davies

(Senior) Research Officer (x2 posts) at Adolescent Health Study (AHS) Start your UK & international job search for academic jobs, research jobs, science jobs and managerial jobs in leading universities and top...

We're hiring! Join us on the incredible Adolescent Health Study — we're looking for two brilliant researchers to help shape and grow this exciting project. Deadline: 28 August. Questions? Get in touch.
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOB253/s...

Work led by Liam Wright, with Gemma Shireby, @timtmorris.bsky.social, and @davidbann.bsky.social.

7/ Our study highlights the power of family-based designs to clarify intergenerational effects—and reminds us that both genes and environments matter.

6/ We also found evidence that maternal BMI was associated with offspring birthweight and adolescent dietary patterns, even after adjusting for inherited genetic liability.

5/ Maternal BMI, however, still showed a strong association with child BMI, even after adjusting for transmission. We estimated maternal indirect effects (via environment) to be ~25–50% the size of the direct genetic effect.

4/ In MR models, there was little evidence that paternal BMI predicted offspring BMI after accounting for direct genetic inheritance. This suggests the paternal BMI-offspring BMI association may be explained by direct inheritance genes, not the paternal environment.

3/ Phenotypically, both maternal and paternal BMI were positively associated with offspring BMI across development. The effects were similar in size—but correlation doesn’t tell us about causality or mechanisms.

2/ We used Mendelian Randomization with polygenic indices (PGIs) in mothers, fathers, and children to separate direct genetic effects from other indirect effects such as nurture—i.e., environmental influences shaped by parents’ genetics.

The association between parental BMI and offspring adiposity: A genetically informed analysis of trios Author summary Children with obesity are more likely to have parents with obesity, too. This may be explained by environmental factors, such as prenatal conditions in utero or postnatal parental behav...

1/ Parents with higher BMI tend to have kids with higher BMI—but why? Is it the genes they pass on, or the environment they create? Or both? We used trio data from MCS to help answer this longstanding question.

journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

I’m hiring- info in the link below, or get in touch if interested

📣 JOB OPPORTUNITY!
💻 Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow in Population Health/Data Science/Genetic Epidemiology

Developing a new Wellcome-funded ALSPAC Olink Explore HT resource

Deadline 15/08/25

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Engagement and Involvement Lead at Adolescent Health Study (AHS) Start your UK & international job search for academic jobs, research jobs, science jobs and managerial jobs in leading universities and top...

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNR789/e...

Causes and consequences of vascular dementia across the life course: Evidence from a UK Biobank phenome-wide and Mendelian randomization study Background Vascular dementia (VaD) is the second most common cause of dementia, yet its risk factors and biological mechanisms remain poorly understood. Objective To identify causes and consequences ...

Fabulous work by Phazha Bothongo!

2 years and several near mental breakdowns for us both in the making!

🧠 Causes and consequences of vascular dementia across the life course: Evidence from a UK Biobank phenome-wide and Mendelian randomization study 🧠

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

Our in-person Mendelian randomisation course is back at University College London this autumn. Join us in Bloomsbury, 16th-18th September 2025.

Tutors: Emma Anderson, Dylan Williams, Neil Davies
Guest lecturer: Eleanor Sanderson

onlinestore.ucl.ac.uk/conferences-...

Mendelian randomization short course This course covers the fundamental developments in Mendelian randomization and gives practical explanations about how to apply MR to applied research questions.

Are you looking to learn how to conduct and interpret Mendelian randomization studies?

You can register now for our in-person short course at UCL. With @emmylooroll.bsky.social and @dylwil.bsky.social

16th-18th September 2025.

Details here:

www.ucl.ac.uk/brain-scienc...

Do get in touch with me if you'd like to know more.

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

*Position 2*: Causes of depression, anxiety and ADHD working with colleagues across UCL, the amazing Born in Bradford, Millenium Cohort Study and the MoBA study in Norway, with collaborations in Bristol and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

UCL – University College London UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

Position 1: Causes of psychosis using new Olink HT proteomics data from ALSPAC, funded by Wellcome, with collaborations with Bath, Cardiff, Oxford and Cambridge universities.

www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Looking for your next research position? We're recruiting two genetic epidemiologists to work on two projects at the Division of Psychiatry at UCL, part of the growing UCL Human Genomics group.

Genetics of monozygotic twins reveals the impact of environmental sensitivity on psychiatric and neurodevelopmental phenotypes - Nature Human Behaviour This study uncovered genetic associations with environmental sensitivity in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental traits in an international collaboration using data from more than 21,000 monozygotic twi...

This study uncovered several genetic associations linked to environmental sensitivity in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental traits, using data from over 21,000 MZ twins @munroepb.bsky.social @thaliaeley.bsky.social @neilmdavies.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our in-person Mendelian randomisation course is back at University College London this autumn. Join us in Bloomsbury, 16th-18th September 2025.

Tutors: Emma Anderson, Dylan Williams, Neil Davies
Guest lecturer: Eleanor Sanderson

onlinestore.ucl.ac.uk/conferences-...

Repurposing drugs for the prevention of vascular dementia: Evidence from drug target Mendelian randomization

*NEW PREPRINT*
Awesome work by Victoria Taylor-Bateman examining the effects of 46 different lipid-lowering, antihypertensive and anti-inflammatory drug targets on risk of vascular dementia diagnosis and several neuroimaging biomarkers of cerebrovascular pathology. A thread :-)
shorturl.at/ecCD0

The proportion of Alzheimer's disease attributable to apolipoprotein E Objective To estimate the proportions of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and all-cause dementia burden attributable to the common risk alleles ε3 and ε4 in the APOE gene Design Genetic association analyses i...

One year later ... a major update to our manuscript showing that most Alzheimer's disease is attributable to the gene APOE. We expanded it to analyses of four studies, now with data on about 460,000 people in total.....
www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...
#Alzheimers #Dementia #Epidemiology #EpiSky

💡 Why join us?
Salary: £38,249–£45,413
Full-time (3 years, plus potential extension)
Great career development and networking opportunities

📍 Apply now: Deadline April 6th.
Be part of ground-breaking research!

Get in touch if you've any questions or would like to discuss.

🔬 Who should apply?
✔️ PhD in Neuroscience, Data Science, or related field
✔️ Expertise in neuroimaging (fMRI, DTI, morphometry)
✔️ Strong programming (Python, Matlab, R) & stats skills
✔️ Research experience in psychosis & cognition

This post is part of a £3.5M Wellcome-funded project exploring brain age acceleration in psychotic disorders. Work with institutions like Oxford, UCL, and Cambridge, analyzing large-scale neuroimaging datasets.

🚀 We're Hiring: Research Associate in Neuroimaging! 🚀

We're looking for a talented Research Associate to join our team at the University of Bath in Esther Walton's group.

www.bath.ac.uk/jobs/Vacancy...

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New paper in @bmj.com. Ever been told ‘what does your DAG say?” or “show me your DAG”, or “ok draw a DAG” and not sure what that means or how to get started? Well buckle up, because Fernando Hartwig, @neilmdavies.bsky.social and I wrote an RMR on just this topic. www.bmj.com/content/388/...

Editorial Registrar, The BMJ | 31 March, 2025 | Jobs and careers with BMJ Group Jobs and careers with BMJ Group -

Fancy spending a year commissioning, editing, and writing content for The BMJ? Applications are now open for next year's Editorial Registrar @bmj.com. Feel free to get in touch with me if you have questions about the role -- I've loved every minute of it.

Come and join our team at UCL

How to Apply | Notion We are hiring for three positions: two in Human Genetics and one in Health Data Science.

Are you interested in causal inference and genetic epidemiology? We have three research posts in Tom Lumbers' research group, part of UCL Human Genomics. Do get in touch for further details.

comp-med-lab.notion.site/How-to-Apply...