Dr Nicola Guess

Personalised Nutrition: Everything We Know So Far About Its Use in Practice

Dr Nicola Guess is an academic dietitian and researcher specialising in the dietary prevention and management of type 2 diabetes. 

She leads the day-to-day management of the NewDAWN (Diabetes Adaptive Weight management Network) research programme. NewDAWN aims to determine whether a new care pathway, offering support for a sequence of NHS weight-loss programmes leads to a higher proportion of people with overweight and newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes (T2D) achieving remission compared with a total diet replacement programme.

Dr Guess also has an interest in calorie-independent dietary approaches to T2D management and has led a number of dietary trials in protein and carbohydrate manipulation to investigate their effects on glucose. Furthermore, as there is a large gap in our understanding of how nutrition affects the underlying pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes, she also collaborates with islet researchers to understand how amino acids, and other dietary components affect acute and chronic beta-cell function.  

Dr Guess is also involved in applied work within type 2 diabetes including SHIFT-Diabetes, which is working towards more targeted T2D management programmes for night shift-workers, and MY GODDESS (Malaysian GestatiOnal Diabetes and prevention of DiabetES Study) which aims to develop a digital intervention for women with gestational diabetes.

Dr Ian Mudway

Eating Plastic: The Current Evidence on Microplastics in the Food Supply

Dr Ian Mudway is the Associate Professor of Environmental Toxicology, head of the Environmental Toxicology group within the School of Public Health at Imperial College London and is the Gresham College Visiting Professor for Environmental Health. He is a member of the MRC Centre for Environment and Health.

He has over 30 years of experience researching the impacts of air pollution on human health, with a specific interest in the role accelerated aging plays in contributing to air pollution-related cardiopulmonary disease, and in the development of assays to quantify the toxicity of the chemical cocktails that pollute the air we breathe, including micro and nanoplastics. Dr Mudway has published over 165 research papers, reports and book chapters on these topics, as well as providing advice to local, national and international governments and NGOs. Dr Mudway is passionate about the communication of science to lay audiences and has worked extensively with artists and educationalist to promote the public understanding of the risks associated with environmental pollutants.

Dr Adrian Brown

Weight Loss Injections: A Deep Dive into the Science & Practical Application of GLP-1 Receptor Agonists

Dr Adrian Brown is a NIHR Advanced Fellow and Associate Professor (Principal Research Fellow) in Nutrition and Dietetics at the Centre of Obesity Research at University College London (UCL), which he co-leads. He also serves as programme co-Lead for the MSc Dietetics (Pre-registration) course at UCL. With over 19 years of clinical experience, he is a Senior Specialist Weight Management and Bariatric Dietitian and holds a PhD in Medicine from Imperial College London.

His research spans a wide range of topics related to obesity and nutrition, including type 2 diabetes, bariatric surgery, weight stigma, ultra-processed foods, food insecurity, sustainability, and the use of formula-based diets in various patient populations. His current NIHR Advanced Fellowship focuses on weight loss in people living with obesity and kidney failure who are undergoing haemodialysis prior to kidney transplantation.

Dr Brown plays a leading role in shaping the field of obesity and dietetics. He is Chair of the Specialist Obesity Group for the British Dietetic Association, a trustee of the Academy of Nutrition Science, a member of the strategic council for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity and serves on the scientific council of the British Nutrition Foundation. In addition to his research and leadership roles, he contributes to academic publishing as Associate Editor for Clinical Obesity and as an editor of the Manual of Dietetic Practice.