Weihua Meng

Biography

Dr Weihua Meng is a lecturer in Genetic Epidemiology in the Division of Population Health Sciences since 2013. He received his clinical and laboratory training from 1997 to 2005 at Zhejiang University, China. In 2008, he was awarded a PhD degree in Human Genetics after 3 years working with Prof Pascal McKeown, Prof Frank Kee and Prof Anne Hughes in the Queen’s University Belfast. With the rising of genome-wide association studies, he participated in the MYEUROPIA project led by Prof Patrick Calvas and Prof Francois Malecaze in the INSERM, France where he received further training in Genetic Statistics. In 2011, he came back to Belfast to identify genetic mutations for rare disorders using knowledge on bioinformatics of next generation sequencing. He is currently working with Prof Blair Smith to locate genes for chronic pain using genome-wide association methods. Meanwhile, he still contributes to reveal genes for multiple eye phenotypes such as myopia and diabetic retinopathy with Prof Colin Palmer. In 2015, He joined the DOLORisk project: Understanding risk factors and determinants for neuropathic pain (Horizon 2020) as a coPI. In 2016, he was appointed as a leader for research-led teaching for the Division. In 2016, he was granted permanent residentship within two hours for his unique expertise in human micro-evolution. In 2017, he became a UK Biobank researcher to identify genetic variants for pain phenotypes using 500,000 UK Biobank participants.

Research Interest

Dr Weihua Meng’s main research interest is to identify the genetic determinants of common complex disorders, which are normally affected by both environmental and genetic factors, such as high myopia and neuropathic pain. Using neuropathic pain as an example, satisfactory relief is only achieved in less than 30% of these patients, with consequent significant detriment to the quality of life of the remaining individuals. Once his work through genome-wide association studies find that variants in certain genes are associated with this disorder, it will confirm hypothesised pathways of pain mechanisms or suggest new ones, and provide possible drug targets for pain treatment, with potential patient benefit. At the moment, he is datamining two datasets, the Genetics of Diabetes Audit and Research Tayside (GoDARTS) and Generation Scotland (GS), to find variants that are associated with pain.