About me

Alastair Kerr received his PhD from the University of Oxford in 2017 investigating novel gene and small molecule therapies for the treatment of Familial Hypercholesterolaemia. Alastair moved to the Karolinska Institutet in 2017 to carry out his postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Prof. Peter Arner and Dr. Ingrid Dahlman. Here he examined how long non-coding RNA functions in human adipocytes to regulate lipid metabolism. During the post-doctoral work Alastair, discovered the long non-coding RNA, ADIPINT, to be a regulator of the lipid mass in adipocytes through interaction with the metabolic enzyme pyruvate carboxylase. He is the inventor of the method TROOPS, which allows the identification of interacting proteins for a given lncRNA.

Alastair is currently an independent researcher using clinical cohorts and large population genetics coupled with advanced molecular methods to uncover how disease relevant long non-coding RNA function in fat cells.