Associate Professor Nicky Whiffin has been awarded the 2025 Balfour Lecture by The Genetics Society.
Nicky is a group leader at the Big Data Institute and the Centre for Human Genetics funded by a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship from Wellcome and the Royal Society. She leads he Computational Rare Disease Genomics group, which uses computational approaches to interpret the role of genetic variants in rare diseases. She has a particular interest in variants that impact gene regulation and understanding how modulating gene regulation can be used to treat rare disease. She is an expert in the annotation and interpretation of variants in non-coding regions of the genome, for which she has led the creation of clinical guidelines.
The Balfour Lecture, named after the Genetics Society’s first President, is an award to mark the contributions to genetics of an outstanding young investigator. The Balfour Lecturer is elected by the Society’s Committee on the basis of nominations made by any individual member of the Society.