Rona Strawbridge

Dr Rona Strawbridge completed her BSc in Biochemistry with Medical Biochemistry at Cardiff University (UK) in 2003 and moved to Karolinksa Institute (Sweden) to undertake her PhD studies and defended her PhD thesis on "Genetic Studies of Prostate Cancer and Type 2 Diabetes: MUC1 and GHR" (2003-2008).

Remaining at Karolinksa Institute as a Post-Doctoral Fellow (2009-2011), Dr Strawbridge shifted her focus to genome-wide genetic studies of glucometabolic and cardiovascular traits, participating in many projects run through international genetics consortia, including MAGIC, GIANT and DIAGRAM. Dr Strawbridge was appointed as a Research Associate Professor (2012-2016), where her research utilised genetics to explore causality of metabolic components on cardiovascular disease, and was awarded Associate Professorship in Molecular Medicine (Docent). She continues to be affiliated with the Cardiovascular Medicine, Genetics and Genomics group at Karolinska Institute.

In 2017 Dr Strawbridge moved to Glasgow University (UK) to join Professor Daniel Smith's team, where her focus is using genetics to understand the biology of serious mental illness and related traits, such as suicidal behaviour; and the increased risk of cardio-metabolic disease in those with serious mental illness.