Dr Melita Irving

Melita Irving is a consultant in clinical genetics at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London. She is also known by her friends at Medics4RareDiseases as the DNA Doctor! Her job is to find out whether a child has certain medical problems because they might have a rare disease (that’s her other title, the Rare Disease-ologist!). She helps people understand the genetic tests they could have to get to the answers they need. Once a rare disease diagnosis has been made, she can help advise what should be done next. In some situations, this might be taking part in research into new treatments. Melita runs a number of clinical trials for genetic disorders of the skeleton. She also helps others plan their own path following the diagnosis of a rare disease in the family. Because genetics can be difficult to follow if you are not a specialist, Melita has written an easy to follow book called the Haynes Human DNA Manual: Understanding your genetic code. There is something for everyone in the book – if you have DNA, you will love it!

Dr Irving was a winner of the Genetic Healthcare Provider (GHP) Private Healthcare Awards 2019. Dr Irving is the author of the Haynes DNA Manual.

Melita’s talk
I shall be extracting DNA live! It might be tricky so I will have a little help from my friend, Lucy at Medics4RareDiseases who will also be probing me with questions about genetics sent in by our viewers – what could possibly go wrong?! Don’t worry, there won’t be any blood and gore around, just a few juicy strawberries and some washing up liquid! Please join us – it will be fun and informative (and very messy!).

Read our latest interview with Melita here.