A few words about me:

I grew up in Bournville in the south of Birmingham, just two minutes from Cadbury World, five minutes away from Dame Elizabeth Cadbury Technology College, where I studied for my GCSEs and A-levels some years ago, and twenty minutes away from the University of Birmingham, where I graduated with a Masters in physics in 2007.  

I’ve since moved on to study for a doctorate at the Life Sciences Interface Doctoral Training Centre (LSI DTC) in Oxford, where I took the opportunity to move into MS research, spending the summer working on the genetics of the disease with the Ebers group at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics (WTCHG) and working on the pathology of the disease at the Oxford Centre for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Brain (FMRIB).  Hopefully my work will be able to help to pin down the particular gene-environment interactions that cause the disease and eventually to highlight new avenues for treatment.

Along with my studies, I have been actively fundraising for the MS Society for the past year or so, running in the 2007 BUPA Great North Run and the 2008 London Marathon, raising over £2,500 to date. And when I’m not working or thinking up ridiculous fundraising ideas, I try to find time to tinker on the old guitar, play a bit of Ultimate Frisbee and indulge in an ancient and mystical hippy game known as hacky sack...

Please sponsor me!

Matt D’Netto