Deanah Lloyd

My name is Deanah Lloyd, and I am currently a Genetic Counselling Intern at the University of Cape Town (UCT). I have always been fascinated by human diseases, especially their cause and inheritance patterns which led to my interest in becoming a genetic counsellor.

My education in human diseases began at the University of Pretoria, where I completed my undergraduate BSc degree in Human Physiology, Psychology and Genetics and Honours in Genetics. My honours research project was focused on using CRISPR/dCas9 to downregulate genes in Populus. Genome editing is a captivating field of research that I believe will soon expand into human research leading to therapies for patients around the world.

In 2018, I began my genetic counselling training at the UCT. During this training, I found that I was particularly interested in late-onset genetic conditions such as cancer and heart disease. It is, therefore, not surprising that I decided to do my masters research project on the “At risk individual’s perspectives of Spinocerebellar Ataxia (SCA) Presymptomatic Testing (PT)”.