Group members

Our group includes researchers from across the Usher Institute, including Usher staff, students, honorary UoE staff and Usher affiliates. We are all interested in molecular epidemiology as a means to understand and ultimately prevent human disease, particularly chronic and complex diseases. New members are always welcome to join us and participate in our regular meetings based in the Centre for Global Health, Usher Institute, Edinburgh Bioquarter.

Current grants and recent publications can be found by following links to individual members.

Professor Harry Campbell

Professor of Genetic Epidemiology and Public Health whose research focuses on cancer genetics and mapping of complex disease QTL in genetic isolate populations.

Professor Harry Campbell

Professor Jonine Figueroa

Honorary Fellow (Chair of Molecular Epidemiology and Global Cancer) whose research focus is on molecular epidemiology of breast cancer with particular emphasis on tissue biomarkers.

Dr Jonine Figueroa

Dr Peter Joshi

Honorary Fellow, interested in the genetic architecture of common diseases, with a specific focus on less common but population wide genetic variants, in order to develop strategies for identifying genetic causes, to assist identification of therapies, and clinical risk assessment and diagnosis.

Dr Peter Joshi

Dr Xue Li

Research Fellow, interested in phenome-wide association study (PheWAS), genetic epidemiology of colorectal cancer, and risk prediction. 

Dr Xue Li

Professor Paul McKeigue

Professor of Statistical Genetics with research interest in Mendelian randomization, prediction, stratified and personalized medicine, and statistical methods for -omics data.

Professor Paul McKeigue

Paul McKeigue's homepage

Paul McKeigue's research group

Dr Stela McLachlan

Research Manager for UK Longitudinal Linkage Collaboration, the national Trusted Research Environment (TRE) for longitudinal research, running application process to access the data.  Own research interest has focused on genetics of complex traits, with emphasis on iron metabolism.

Dr Stela McLachlan

Dr Nicola Pirastu

Honoary Fellow, interested in understanding the genetic determinants of food preferences and choices and how these interact with other factors to determine people's health.

Dr Nicola Pirastu

Professor Jackie Price

Professor of Molecular Epidemiology and Honorary Consultant in Public Health researching molecular epidemiology of vascular disease and diabetes, and age-related cognitive impairment.

Professor Jackie Price

Professor Igor Rudan

Professor of International Health and Molecular Medicine with interest in mapping complex traits in isolate populations.

Professor Igor Rudan

Dr Xia Shen

Honorary Fellow, interested in in statistical modeling of high-throughput omics big data. His interdisciplinary research consist of genetics, computational biology, and statistical inference.

Dr Xia Shen

Dr Athina Spiliopoulou

Chancellor's Fellow interested in prediction of complex phenotypic traits from omics data, with a particular focus on machine learning methods and genotypic markers.

Dr Athina Spiliopoulou

Professor Evropi Theodoratou

Professor in Cancer Epidemiology, interested in colorectal cancer genetics, field synopses of genetic association studies and the role of glycans in colorectal cancer.

Professor Evropi Theodoratou

Professor Sarah Wild

Professor of Epidemiology and Honorary Consultant in Public Health whose research interests include epidemiology of cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

Professor Sarah Wild

Professor Jim Wilson

 Professor of Human Genetics whose research focuses on complex traits, isolated populations, inbreeding, population structure and genomic medicine through return of results to cohort participants.

Professor Jim Wilson

Jim Wilson's research group