Staff and students recently gathered at Liverpool Medical Institution to celebrate Professor Bernadette Moore’s inaugural lecture.
In her lecture, titled ‘From molecular mechanisms to public health: the role of nutrition and lifestyle in steatotic liver disease’, Professor Moore shared her journey on the ‘road less travelled’ to Professor and Chair and her insights on the often-contentious subject of nutrition and how to eat appropriately for healthy ageing.
Professor Moore joined the University of Liverpool in 2024 as Chair of Nutritional Biochemistry in the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Systems Biology. A multidisciplinary nutritional scientist, her research involves dietary and physical activity intervention studies in humans, alongside proteomics, genomics and systems biology approaches in the lab. Her research investigates the molecular mechanisms underpinning the roles of dietary nutrients in health and disease and in 2018 she was awarded the Nutrition Society’s Silver Medal for Research Excellence.
Having moved from Ireland to Florida at the age of 12, Bernadette spent her childhood as an avid reader and creative writer and graduated with a BSc in nutrition in 1993 (having switched from aerospace and aeronautical engineering!) After a brief foray into retail management, she returned to university in 1995, which exposed her to the ‘magic’ of molecular biology. During this time, she also published her first paper and earned a second BSc in Analytical Chemistry.
Bernadette earned her PhD at the University of Florida under the mentorship of the eminent nutritional biochemist Professor Robert J. Cousins, uncovering molecular mechanisms explaining the effects of zinc deficiency on the immune system. She subsequently worked at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC where her interests in science policy and the prevention of obesity were fostered.
Following postdoctoral research at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland and NUI-Maynooth in Ireland, Bernadette moved to the UK in 2008 to start her first laboratory at the University of Surrey, which focused on steatotic (fatty) liver disease. In 2016 she moved to the University of Leeds where she held multiple leadership positions and was promoted to Professor.
Professor Pat Eyers, Head of the Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Systems Biology commented “I am thrilled Bernadette chose to join us in Liverpool. As well as being a delight to collaborate with, her research is of huge importance to public health.”
Professor Moore said: “Nutrition has always been my passion, and I am honoured to have been appointed the first Chair in Nutritional Biochemistry here in Liverpool. I am very much looking forward to continuing my work with both new and existing collaborators, in Liverpool and elsewhere.”
View the lecture below: