Dr Jess Tyrrell

Jess is an Associate Professor in the Clinical and Biomedical Sciences Department within the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at Exeter. Her main research interest involves using genetics to understand the relationships between metabolic and mental health disorders. In addition, she also uses big data approaches, mobile phone applications and state of the art motion capture technologies to research vestibular conditions of the inner ear, including Meniere's disease.

The majority of her research utilises big data, including the UK Biobank data and the China Kadoorie Biobank, both with over 500,000 individuals. Dr Tyrrell is utilising this data and genetic approaches to understand relationships between metabolic and mental health. She has demonstrated the importance of sociocultural factors in the obesity – depression relationship and is now working on a MRC funded project looking at the relationship between type 2 diabetes and depression. She is hoping to use genetics to improve our understanding of why individuals with both type 2 diabetes and depression have more adverse outcomes than individuals with either type 2 diabetes or depression alone. Working with colleagues from Edinburgh, Glasgow and London she is part of the MRC funded hub in Metabolic Psychiatry with her team leading the genetic analyses to tease apart relationships between metabolic health and severe mental illness. 

Jess is the Programme Director for the Msc in Genomic Medicine and the asynchrous online MSc in Genomic Medicine.

Postgraduate Research opportunities: Dr Tyrrell is open to email enquires from students with their own funding interested in pursing an MSc by Research or PhD using genetics to understand the complex links between metabolic and mental health.

ORCID: 0000-0002-9256-6065