Project supervisors
Investigators providing guidance and support.
All the XDF Programme rotation projects are expected to involve both biomedical researchers and people from numerical disciplines. This is to facilitate cross-disciplinary and collaborations between Schools and Departments as well as to expose the Fellows to a broader spectrum of diverse research environments and approaches.
If you would like to propose a project and become one of the supervisors please use our XDF Project template and submit it to
If you are looking for a collaborator for a Cross-disciplinary project please visit our Project Matchmaking Facility. The details of current projects can be found in the Projects section.
Supervisors of current XDF Programme projects
Catalina Vallejos – Biomedical Data Science
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM) & The Alan Turing Institute
Research Themes: Statistical genomics, electronic health records research
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/mrc-human-genetics-unit/research/vallejos-group
Guido Sanguinetti - Computational Bioinformatics
Affiliation: Institute of Adaptive and Neural Computation (School of Informatics)
Research Themes: Probabilistic modelling of biological systems
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/gsanguinettilab/home
Neil Carragher - Drug Discovery
Affiliation: Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre (IGMM)
Research Themes: Oncology drug discovery and development
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/cancer-centre/research/carragher-group
Matthias H. Henning – Computational Neuroscience and Neuroinformatics
Affiliation: Institute of Adaptive and Neural Computation (School of Informatics)
Research Themes: Network dynamics and neuronal homeostasis
Website: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/mhennig/
Colin Semple - Biomedical Genomics
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM)
Research Themes: Fundamental biology of gene regulation
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/mrc-human-genetics-unit/research/semple-group
Bartlomiej Waclaw - Statistical & Biological Physics
Affiliation: Institute for Condensed Matter and Complex Systems (School of Physics and Astronomy)
Research Themes: Physics of Living Matter, Statistical Physics and Complexity
Website: https://bartekwaclaw.wordpress.com/
Tamir Chandra - Biomedical Genomics
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM)
Research Themes: Systems Biology of Ageing and Disease
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/mrc-human-genetics-unit/research/chandra-group
Davide Marenduzzo - Computational Biophysics
Affiliation: Institute for Condensed Matter and Complex Systems (School of Physics and Astronomy)
Research Themes: Physics of Living Matter, Soft Matter Physics, Computational Materials Physics, Statistical Physics and Complexity
Website: https://www2.ph.ed.ac.uk/~dmarendu/
Andy Sims - Applied Bioinformatics of Cancer
Affiliation: Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre (IGMM)
Research Themes: High-throughput genomic approaches, precision medicine, data integration
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/cancer-centre/research/sims-group
Ian Simpson – Biological Informatics
Affiliation: Institute of Adaptive and Neural Computation (School of Informatics)
Research Themes: Neuroregulatory genomics, Computational Biology, Statistics and Machine-learning, Analysis of high-throughput data-sets (genomic, meta-genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic).
Website: http://statbio.github.io/
Duncan Sproul - Genome Regulation
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM)
Research Themes: Epigenetics in Human Disease
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/mrc-human-genetics-unit/research/sproul-group
Nick Gilbert - Genome Regulation
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM)
Research Themes: Chromatin Structure and Genome Integrity
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/mrc-human-genetics-unit/research/gilbert-group
Riccardo Marioni - Medical Genetics
Affiliation: Centre for Genomic & Experimental Medicine (IGMM)
Research Themes: Genetics and epigenetics of cognitive ageing
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/centre-genomic-medicine/research-groups/marioni-group
Benjamin Bach – Design Informatics and Visualisation
Affiliation: Institute for Language, Cognition and Computation (School of Informatics)
Research Themes: Information Visualization, Augmented Reality, Human-Computer Interaction, Networks
Website: http://www.aviz.fr/~bbach/homepage/index-homepage.html
Dimitrios Papadopoulos - Disease Mechanisms
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM)
Research Themes: Molecular interactions of transcription factors with chromatin
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/mrc-human-genetics-unit/research/papadopoulos-group
Michael Gutmann - Machine Learning
Affiliation: Institute of Adaptive and Neural Computation (School of Informatics)
Research Themes: Approximate Inference, Unsupervised Deep Learning, Computational Biology
Website: https://michaelgutmann.github.io/
Albert Tenesa - Biomedical Genomics
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM) & the Roslin Institute
Research Themes: Quantitative Genetics
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/mrc-human-genetics-unit/research/tenesa-group
Oriol Canela-Xandri - Biomedical Genomics
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM)
Research Themes: Developing methods for understanding how genes are related to the development of different traits.
Konrad Rawlik - Genetic Dissection of Complex Traits
Affiliation: The Roslin Institute
Research Themes: Complex Genetic Traits, Machine Learning and Computational Neuroscience
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/roslin/about/contact-us/staff/konrad-rawlik
Ian Jackson - Disease Mechanisms
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM)
Research Themes: Molecular Genetics and Development of Melanocytes, Genetic Models for Human Disease
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/mrc-human-genetics-unit/research/i-jackson-group
Chris Ponting - Biomedical Genomics
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM)
Research Themes: Computational and Disease Genomics
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/mrc-human-genetics-unit/research/ponting-group
David Fitzpatrick - Disease Mechanisms
Affiliation: MRC Human Genetics Unit (IGMM)
Research Themes: Genetic Causes of Developmental Disorders
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/mrc-human-genetics-unit/research/fitzpatrick-group
Steven Pollard - Stem Cell and Cancer Biology
Affiliation: Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre (IGMM) & Centre for Regenerative Medicine
Research Themes: Neural Stem Cells and Brain Cancer
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/cancer-centre/research/s-pollard-group
Adam Byron - Protein Informatics and Network Analysis
Affiliation: Cancer Research UK Edinburgh Centre (IGMM)
Research Themes: Cell Adhesion Networks in Cancer
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/cancer-centre/research/byron-group & https://adambyron.com/
J. Douglas Armstrong - Bioinformatics and Systems Neurobiology
Affiliation: Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation (School of Informatics)
Research Themes: Bioinformatics and protein networks, models of the molecular complexes found at the synapse, behavioural analysis and data capture, neuroanatomy and gene expression, CNS drug discovery
Website: http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jda/index.html
Nizar Batada - Genome Medicine
Affiliation: Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine (IGMM)
Research Themes: Genomic and Computational Cancer Biology
Website: https://www.ed.ac.uk/centre-genomic-medicine/research-groups/batada-group
Katherine Dunn -Mechanical Engineering
Affiliation: Bioengineering (School of Engineering)
Research Themes: Bioengineering
Website: https://www.eng.ed.ac.uk/about/people/dr-katherine-dunn