MissMary Adeturinmo

Mary Adeturinmo is a Healthcare and Design Researcher at Imperial College London and Project Lead of Know Your BloodLine (KYBL), a community-informed project exploring sickle cell genetic inheritance to improve genomic health literacy and informed reproductive health choices among high-risk communities in the UK. KYBL is guided by a PPI Steering Group and a Student and Youth Advisory Board who help shape the project's direction and dissemination. Mary is also a co-founder of the Imperial Sickle Cell Group, embedding the Sickle CHARTA ethos at Imperial through a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach to sickle cell's health challenges in Africa and globally.

She holds a Master of Research in 'Healthcare and Design' and a BA (Hons) in Architecture. During her master's, she developed the Design for Sickle Cell initiative, exploring the condition through Art, Design and Science. Specialising in Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement, she was commissioned by the Royal College of Art to showcase this work through workshops and an interactive exhibition at Great Exhibition Road Festival 2023. She has published in Wellcome Open Research and presented at ASCAT, Africa Innovates at Imperial, and the Cranfield Africa Impact Summit. She applies her embodied knowledge in her research, drawing on her lived experience of sickle cell disorder.

Experience

• Marketing and Community Engagement, NHS Blood and Transplant
• Sickle Cell Advisor, NHS Race and Health Observatory
• Co-founder, Imperial Sickle Cell Group and EQuity Lab
• Research Coordinator, Genomic integrity and safety of stem-cell gene therapy in SCD (Imperial College Healthcare Tissue Bank/REC 3 Wales approved; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded)
• Research Assistant, Imperial College London
• User Researcher and committee member, Disabled Leaders Network, GDI Hub

As a Sickle Cell Ambassador, Mary co-led the #DearSickleCell campaign for NHS Blood and Transplant, which reached over seven million people and recruited thousands of new Black blood donors.