Dr Xueyi Shen

Senior Research Fellow

  • Division of Psychiatry, Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences

Contact details

Address

Street

GU305, Chancellor's Building

City
Post code
EH16 4SB

Biography

Qualifications

PhD in Psychiatry, The University of Edinburgh 2015 – 2019

Responsibilities & affiliations

Editorial Board Member of BMC Medicine (2026-)

Nature Reviewing Editor (2026-)

Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports (2025-)

World Congress of Psychiatric Genetics programme committee (2024-)

Group lead of xQTL interest group at Psychiatric Genomics Consortium Functional Genomics Working Group (2024-)

Steering group member of Alliance for Complex Trait Genetics (2023-)

University of Edinburgh BAME society mentorship programme, Mentor (2022-2024)

Undergraduate teaching

Epigenetics and Mental Health, Genetic and Environmental Influences on Behaviour and Mental Health

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Current PhD students supervised

Poppy Bartrum, PhD candidate (co-lead supervisor, 2026-)

Somying Angela Tsai, PhD candidate (lead supervisor, 2024-)

Yuyang Jiang, PhD candidate (assistant supervisor, 2024-)

Laurence Nisbet, PhD candidate (co-lead supervisor, 2023-2026)

Past PhD students supervised

Ella Davyson, PhD (assistant supervisor, 2022-2025)

Gladi Thng, PhD (assistant supervisor, 2021-2024)

Kenrick Ying, Biomedical Sciences Honors Project (2025)

Christina Steyn, Wellcome Translational Neurosicience placement (2024)

Angela Chitzanidi, Quantitative Genetics MSc dissertation (2022)

Zhe Chen, Quantitative Genetics MSc dissertation (2022)

Micheal Sewell, Wellcome Translational Neuroscience placement (2021)

Lorena Jiménez-Sánchez, Wellcome Translational Neuroscience placement (2021)

Research summary

My research focuses on the intersection of multi-omic biomarkers with major psychiatric conditions, modifiable environmental factors and pharmaceutical target prioritisation.

Knowledge exchange

  • Education Day at the World Congress of Psychiatric Genomics (2026, co lead)

        Multi-Omics Analyses - Current Approaches, Challenges and Opportunities

  • ECR workshop at the Mental Health Platform Summit (2025, co lead)

        Proteomics and Mental Health: Using Large-scale Population-based Plasma Proteomic Data to Examine Causal Mechanisms and Blood-based Biomarkers for Mental Health Conditions

 

Project activity

I am co-leading metabolic-proteomic work theme at the ImmunoMIND hub in the Mental Health Platform: https://www.immunomind.info/. ImmunoMIND is an inter-disciplinary research consortium that brings together academic experts and people with lived experience across an international network of leading universities in Amsterdam, Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Oxford.

I am the Scotland lead of the Psychosis work stream of the Mental Health Goals programme: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/life-sciences-healthcare-goals/mental-health-goals

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