The Unit
Ken Ong - Group Leader
Contact Details
MRC Epidemiology Unit
Institute of Metabolic Science
Box 285
Addenbrooke's Hospital
Hills Road
Cambridge
CB2 0QQ
Tel: +44 (0)1223 769207
Fax: +44 (01223) 330316
email: ken.ong@mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk
Biography
Ken Ong is the Group Leader of the Child Growth and Development Programme. His research explores rapid postnatal growth, weight gain and physical maturation as determinants of, and also potential targets for the prevention of, childhood obesity and later life disease. He works closely with the Unit’s other research areas in the aetiology of obesity and type 2 diabetes, the evaluation of objective physical activity measurement in children, and the development and testing of behavioural interventions to prevent childhood obesity. In January 2011 Ken was seconded to the MRC Lifelong Health and Ageing Unit (for 2 days per week) to help develop genetic, endocrine and metabolic projects in the National Survey of Health and Development (the British 1946 Birth Cohort).
As well as his research work, Ken is a consultant paediatric endocrinologist and clinical lead for childhood obesity at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. He is also an affiliated lecturer in the Department of Paediatrics, University of Cambridge. He obtained his PhD in paediatrics following research at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, using large population studies to explore gene-environment interactions in foetal and early childhood growth. Ken has been with the MRC Epidemiology Unit since 2005.
