Athina Spiliopoulou

Chancellor's Fellow

Biography

Background

I am a biostatistician with broad methodological expertise in machine learning (doctoral training) and genetic epidemiology (post-doctoral training). The aims of my research programme are to understand disease pathogenesis, and to inform decisions around disease diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment using probabilistic models and computational approaches. Much of my work is on developing methods and tools to enable such predictive and causal inferences through the analysis of large-scale, high-dimensional datasets, combining genetic and biomarker data with clinical outcomes. I mostly research the aetiology and management of autoimmune diseases, especially rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes, though the methods I develop are more broadly applicable.

I am funded by Versus Arthritis as a Career Development Fellow and I am a Lecturer at the Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, where together with Paul McKeigue, I lead the Genetic Targets and Precision Medicine Research Group. I am also an affiliate of the Institute of Genetics and Cancer, where I work closely with the Diabetes Medical Informatics and Epidemiology Research Group, led by Helen Colhoun.

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