Alex Blakemore

Professor Alex Blakemore is a Professor in Human Genomics at Brunel University London, where she is based in the Department of Life Sciences within the College of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences. She previously held a position as Professor in Human Molecular Genetics at Imperial College London's Faculty of Medicine, where she retains a visiting chair position. Blakemore joined Brunel University London as Head of the Department of Life Sciences in January 2016, serving in this leadership role for five years before returning to a more research-focused position in January 2022. She completed both her first degree and PhD at the University of Sheffield.

Blakemore's research career has been marked by significant contributions to understanding genetic factors in human health conditions. Her early work focused on MCAD deficiency, where she was the first in the UK to provide DNA-based diagnosis and estimate its prevalence in the general population. This research directly contributed to the implementation of UK-wide newborn screening for this disorder in 2009. She has since expanded her research to investigate the genetics of obesity, autism-related traits, emotion processing, and diabetes.

Her research interests center on understanding how genetic variation influences obesity, diabetes, autism-related traits, and emotion processing. She leads the Personalised Medicine in Morbid Obesity study, which includes approximately 2,000 participants, and has discovered the first case of CPE deficiency—a new form of monogenic obesity and diabetes in humans. Her work spans multiple methodologies, including psychology, physical activity tracking, gene expression analysis, and genetics. Blakemore also investigates how many cases of Mendelian obesity might be hidden among severely obese individuals referred for weight-loss operations and what factors influence surgical outcomes.

Blakemore is deeply committed to equality and widening participation in STEM fields. As a former teenage mother who raised three children while studying for her degrees, she has written extensively about her experiences to encourage other students, particularly mothers, to pursue careers in STEM. She is an active member of Athena SWAN teams working for gender equality in Higher Education and serves as president of the Greater London Association of the British Federation of Women Graduates.

Her teaching focuses on human molecular genetics, and she currently supervises six PhD students: Sanne Alsters, Andrianos Yiorkas, Nikman Adli, Hanis Ramzi, Olivia Szepietowski, and Sumaya Al Mansoori. Blakemore is also active on social media platforms including Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate, where she shares her research and advocacy work.