Dr Mícheál Ó Breasail joined the School of Clinical Sciences as a Research Fellow in the Bone and Muscle Research Group in July 2023.

Mícheál has background in clinical nutrition having received a BSc in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from Trinity College Dublin. During this time he completed a research exchange at the University of Gothenburg as part of the Erasmus Programme which ignited his interest in bone health. In 2019, he was awarded a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Cambridge for research undertaken at MRC Human Nutrition Research Unit investigating whether pregnancy-related changes occur in the maternal skeleton.

Upon completion, he continued as a postdoc with the MRC Nutrition and Bone Health Research Group hosted by the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge. This involved musculoskeletal research in rural and urban areas of The Gambia, West Africa. Further, collaborations involved projects exploring the impact of HIV and menopause on bone in South African and Zimbabwean women.

Subsequently, he moved to Bristol to join the department of Population Health Sciences at Bristol Medical School. Here he worked with the Ageing and Movement Research Group, incorporating musculoskeletal and nutritional assessments into a large RCT of people living with Parkinson’s. During this time he also received funding to conduct feasibility work into the use of digital technologies such as GPS to monitor mobility in older adults.

Mícheál’s primary research interests are in bone imaging, lifecourse epidemiology, nutrition, and global health.