Dr Catherine John

Catherine is a clinical academic in public health and genetic epidemiology, with a track record in the design, development and management of cohort studies and the use of longitudinal and linked healthcare data in combination with genetic data.

She is Principal Investigator of the EXCEED study, a cohort of over 11,000 adults from Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, which aims to uncover environmental and genetic causes of long-term conditions.  She was also a founding co-investigator of UK-REACH, a, ethnically diverse cohort of healthcare workers founded during the COVID-19 pandemic which now focuses on health and wellbeing of those working in the NHS.

She leads genetic association studies in respiratory and other long-term conditions, particularly using electronic health records (EHR) to enable well-powered studies of traits that are otherwise difficult to study.  This included the first genetic association study to use electronic health records to study thyroid hormone levels, which more than doubled the number of genetic variants implicated in thyroid function, and demonstrated the relevance of a polygenic score across multiple genetic ancestry groups.

Key interests include development of genomic research capacity in low- and middle-income settings (particularly sub-Saharan Africa), representation of underserved communities in health data science, and effective public engagement in the context of longitudinal studies. 

Selected grants:

Sandys M, Saleem Z, Kumaravel B, John C, Orton E, Vande Hey J, et al. Leicestershire County Council Health Determinants Research Collaboration; driving evidence-based decision making. NIHR, £5.2m, January 2024 to December 2029.

Ng G Andre, et al. Personalised Space Technology Exercise Platform (P-STEP), UK Space Agency, £2m, September 2021 to August 2024.

Pareek M, Abrams K, Abubakar I ... John C, et al. UK-REACH: United Kingdom Research Study into Ethnicity And COVID-19 outcomes in Healthcare workers. (DHSC/UKRI, £2.1m), August 2020 to May 2022.

Vande Hey J, Micklesfield L, Ramsay M ... John C, et al. Environmental health in sub-Saharan Africa: leveraging local and global air pollution data for epidemiological research. (UKRI/Royal Society of Engineering, £288,954), March 2020 to March 2023.

John C. MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship. Characterising the shared and disease-specific genetic determinants of asthma and COPD. (MRC, £185,329). Oct 2016-Sept 2019.

Selected publications:

Major Depressive Disorder Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium. Trans-ancestry genome-wide study of depression identifies 697 associations implicating cell types and pharmacotherapies. Cell, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2024.12.002   

Genomics of chronic dry cough unravels neurological pathways. Coley K, John C, et al. Eur Respir J, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1183/13993003.02341-2024.

Genome-wide association study of long COVID. Lammi V, et al. Nature Genetics, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-025-02100-w

Coley K, et al. Genome-wide association study of varenicline-aided smoking cessation. Nicotine & Tobacco Research, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntaf009

Boyd A, et al. UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration (UK LLC): The National Trusted Research Environment for Longitudinal Research. International Journal of Population Data Science, 2025. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.23889/ijpds.v10i1.2468

Genetics of chronic respiratory disease. Nature Reviews Genetics, 2024. Sayers I, John C, Chen J, Hall IP. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41576-024-00695-0

Genome-wide association study of thyroid-stimulating hormone highlights new genes, pathways and associations with thyroid disease. Nature Communications, 2023. Williams AT, […], Tobin MD, John C. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-42284-5

Genetic Associations and Architecture of Asthma-COPD Overlap. John C, Guyatt AL, et al. CHEST 2022; 161(5):1155 – 1166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chest.2021.12.674

Ethnic differences in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine hesitancy in United Kingdom healthcare workers: Results from the UK-REACH prospective nationwide cohort study. Lancet Regional Health Europe, 2021. Woolf K, McManus C, Martin CA, ... John C, et al. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2021.100180

The United Kingdom Research study into Ethnicity And COVID-19 outcomes in Healthcare workers (UK-REACH): Protocol for a prospective longitudinal cohort study of healthcare and ancillary workers in UK healthcare settings. BMJ Open 2021;11:e050647. Woolf K, Melbourne CA, Bryant L, ...John C, et al for the UK-REACH collaboration. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2021-050647 

Genetic and clinical characteristics of treatment-resistant depression using primary care records in two UK cohorts. Molecular Psychiatry 2021. Fabbri C, Hagenaars SP,John C, et al.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01062-9 

Cohort Profile: Extended Cohort for E-health, Environment and DNA (EXCEED). John C*, Reeve NF*, Free RC, […] Wain LV, Tobin MD. International Journal of Epidemiology 2019; dyz073, https://doi.org/10.1093/ije/dyz073

A genome-wide association study of moderate-severe asthma in individuals of European ancestry. Shrine N*, Portelli MA*, John C*, et al. Lancet Respiratory Medicine 2019;7:20-34. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(18)30389-8

Genetic variants affecting cross-sectional lung function in adults show little or no effect on longitudinal lung function decline. John C*, Soler Artigas M*, […] Wain LV, Tobin MD Thorax 2017;72:400-408. https://doi.org/10.1136/thoraxjnl-2016-208448