Dr Ramatoulie Janha is a Postdoctoral Scientist working in the Calcium, Vitamin D and Bone Health (CDBH) group of the Nutrition Theme at MRCG Keneba.
She is interested in nutrition research for optimal growth and development. She has experience in an African setting where poverty and the prevalence of micronutrient deficiencies is high and the impact on the quality of life is evident. She is leading on the 20-year follow-up study of the double-blind randomised controlled trial of calcium carbonate versus placebo in pregnant women, the primary objective of which was to prevent high blood pressure during pregnancy. The main outcomes in the follow up study are bone mineral content, fragility fractures, biomarkers of bone metabolism, kidney function and high blood pressure. Dr Janha is involved in several other on-going and planned CDBH studies and is the Gambian lead for the next round of the Gambian Bone Ageing Study, including characterising osteoarthritis in elderly urban dwellers. Dr Janha joined the Nutrition Theme in July 2014. She was one of the first African female recipients of a PhD fellowship from the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership in 2006, and enrolled at the UK Open University. Her PhD research investigated the relationship between host genetic factors, pharmacokinetics and therapeutic effectiveness of the antimalarial chlorproguanil formulated into chlorproguanil-dapsone. Her PhD work is published in the journals Pharmacogenomics and BMC Evolutionary Biology. She has a BSc in Biochemistry from the University of Ghana.

Under the leadership of Prof Ann Prentice (Director of MRC Elsie Widdowson Laboratory Cambridge and Head of CDBH) and mentorship of senior scientists Dr Gail Goldberg, Dr Kate Ward and Landing Jarjou, Dr Janha also manages the state-of-the-art bone imaging facilities of CDBH. She has attended several international conferences and workshops to present her work, and was selected to participate in the recent 17th African Nutrition Leadership Programme in South Africa, and has spent time in Cambridge. She hopes her research output in nutrition will guide national and international policies for calcium supplementation in pregnancy for women living in rural parts of Africa, policies that will impact throughout the life-course.