Speaker information

Karen Forbes, Associate Professor of Molecular Endocrinology and Reproduction 

Karen Forbes is an Associate Professor of Molecular Endocrinology and Reproduction at the University of Leeds. She received her BSc (Hons) in Immunology and pharmacology and her PhD in Physiology and pharmacology from the University of Strathclyde.
Following her Ph.D., Karen moved to the University of Manchester, where she worked as a postdoctoral research associate in Reproductive Endocrinology before being awarded a University Fellowship to start her own research team. In 2014, Karen was appointed as a Lecturer at the University of Leeds, and she was promoted to Associate Professor in 2020.

Karen’s research is focussed on understanding how factors in the maternal environment (diet, microRNAs and extracellular vesicles) contribute to altered placental and fetal growth, particularly in pregnancies complicated by maternal diabetes.
She has a research programme that spans understanding the basic mechanisms of disease progression to developing potential novel therapeutics for the prevention of these conditions.

Karen has been an active member of the Society for Endocrinology for several years and has previously held roles on the Young Endocrinologists (now Early Career) Steering Committee and the Public Engagement Committee. She currently serves on the Science Committee and Programme Committee (co-opted) and is the Basic Science Convenor for Reproductive Endocrinology and Biology Network.

Ruth Morgan, Veterinary Endocrinologist 

Ruth Morgan is a veterinary endocrinologist and a lecturer at the SRUC/University of Edinburgh based at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh. After several years in private equine practice, she qualified from Cambridge University and completed her residency in Equine Internal Medicine at Liverpool University. She became a diplomate of the European College of Equine Internal Medicine in 2013. She received her Ph.D. in “Cortisol dysregulation in equine endocrinopathic laminitis” from the University of Edinburgh in 2016. She then undertook her first Wellcome Trust Clinical Career Development Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh and has just been awarded a second fellowship from the Wellcome Trust. Her research focuses on comparative glucocorticoid biology and, in particular, the role of glucocorticoid metabolism in health and disease. Working with experimental models, veterinary clinical cases and human data, she investigates the relationships between glucocorticoid metabolism and the morbidities associated with obesity.