MRC PHRU - Key Persons
Charlie is an Epidemiologist within the Wearables Group at the Big Data Institute and Nuffield Department of Population Health. His current research interests include the use of wearables data in risk prediction modelling and digital trial endpoints.
He joined the department in 2015 as a Medical Statistician and has contributed to numerous studies including large-scale randomised trials, meta-analyses, and observational studies in both cardiovascular and kidney disease. Charlie obtained his DPhil in Population Health from the Nuffield Department of Population Health, where he investigated whether routinely collected healthcare data can be used to reliably follow-up participants in large randomised trials. He completed his undergraduate degree in Economics at the University of East Anglia and MSc in Economics at Bristol University.
Job Titles:
- Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology
Colin Baigent studied Medicine at Bristol and Oxford University (1983-89), having originally studied Mathematics at Oxford (1980-83).
He became an MRC career scientist in 2002, and in 2006 was appointed Professor of Epidemiology at Oxford. He was elected to Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2019. He is now retired and was appointed Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology in 2023.
His main interest is in cardiovascular epidemiology, and most particularly the design, conduct and application of large-scale randomised trials in cardiovascular disease. His research includes the coordination of meta-analyses of randomised trials, typically with individual participant data, resulting in landmark papers that have helped determine the effects of aspirin (and other antiplatelet drugs), non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, fibrinolytic therapy, and statins in different types of patients. The recent work of his group on the Cholesterol Treatment Trialists' (CTT) Collaboration, led by Associate Professor Christina (Kirsty) Reith, has provided major new insights into the safety of statin therapy.
Together with Professor Sir Martin Landray, he initiated the department's Renal Studies Group, now led by Professors Will Herrington and Richard Haynes, and he remains actively involved in the group's work. This group has contributed to a better understanding of cardiovascular disease and the determinants of progressive loss of kidney function in patients with renal impairment through its work on large-scale randomised trials of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD).
David Preiss studied medicine at the University of Pretoria, South Africa and, after junior doctor training posts in medicine and biochemistry in Scotland, qualified as a consultant in Chemical Pathology and Metabolic Medicine in Glasgow in 2012. He completed his thesis, examining the links between glycaemia and cardiovascular disease, in 2011/2012 and was awarded the University of Glasgow's Bellahouston Medal for this research. He was recipient of a Rising Star Fellowship from the European Foundation for the Study of Diabetes in 2013, and was also awarded the Royal College of Pathology's Research Medal for Clinical Biochemistry in 2010. David was appointed as a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at CTSU in September 2015 and as Associate Professor in 2018. He is a previous BHF Centre for Research Excellence Senior Transition Fellow and leads the module on Clinical Trial Reporting and Meta-analyses in the University's MSc on Clinical Trials.
His major interest is the prevention of cardiovascular and microvascular disease with particular focus on lipid modification and diabetes. His current research combines clinical trials, epidemiological studies and meta-analyses of major studies. Current projects include:
ASCEND PLUS: a randomised trial investigating the effect of the GLP1 receptor agonist, oral semaglutide, on major cardiovascular events in 20,000 participants with type 2 diabetes.
LENS: a randomised trial investigating the effect of the cholesterol and triglyceride-lowering drug, fenofibrate, on the progression of diabetic eye disease in 1,150 participants with diabetes and observable retinopathy or maculopathy.
ORION-4: a randomised trial investigating the effect of the LDL cholesterol-lowering drug, inclisiran, on major cardiovascular events in 16,000 participants with cardiovascular disease.
EMPA-KIDNEY: a randomised trial investigating the effect of the SGLT2 inhibitor, empagliflozin, on worsening of kidney disease or cardiovascular death in 6,600 participants with chronic kidney disease.
Cholesterol Treatment Trialists' Collaboration: analyses of adverse event data from randomised controlled trials of statin therapy.
Christiana Kartsonaki is a Senior Statistician at the MRC Population Health Unit and the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU) in the Nuffield Department of Population Health, University of Oxford. She is working on the epidemiology of cancer and other diseases, as well as on related statistical methods. Her interests include investigating the associations of risk factors and biomarkers (such as metabolomics and proteomics) with various cancers, mainly in the China Kadoorie Biobank, risk prediction, the design of case-subcohort and other studies, as well as other topics including cardiometabolic diseases, air pollution, COVID-19, and cystic fibrosis.
She has a degree in Mathematics, an MSc in Applied Statistics and a DPhil in Statistics. She has previously worked as a Biostatistician at the Department of Oncology of the University of Oxford and as a Research Associate at the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care of the University of Cambridge.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Research Fellow
- Research Fellow
Dr Emily Sammons is a Clinical Research Fellow and DPhil student at the Clinical Trial Service Unit of the University of Oxford. She has particular research interests in diabetic eye disease and age-related macular degeneration. Alongside this she works on two large randomised controlled trials: ASCEND and REVEAL. ASCEND is studying whether aspirin and omega-3 fish oil supplementation protects against cardiovascular disease in people with diabetes. REVEAL is assessing the safety and benefits of taking a new lipid-modifying drug called anacetrapib, by those with pre-existing atherosclerotic vascular disease. Emily has background experience of working in General Medicine and a MSc in Public Health.
Hongchao Pan is a statistician and epidemiologist in the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU). He holds a PhD in astrophysics from University of Leicester and an MSc in epidemiology from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Since joining CTSU in 1995, he has worked on number of large-scale randomised clinical trials (such as CAST, COMMIT/CCS2, ACST, ATLAS) and epidemiological studies.
His research interests include systemic treatments for early breast cancer, effect of obesity on breast cancer prognosis, and mortality from smoking. Dr Pan leads the meta-analysis of individual participant data of the breast cancer screening trials with mammography and the long-term follow-up of the British Doctors Study.
Job Titles:
- Senior Epidemiologist University Research Lecturer
Iona Millwood completed an undergraduate degree in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge and a DPhil in Molecular Genetics at the University of Oxford. She worked as a postdoctoral research associate at Imperial College London, on large-scale genetic epidemiological projects including the Northern Finland Birth Cohorts, and also spent several years as a Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, Australia, developing and conducting clinical trials for biomedical methods of HIV prevention in Australia and South-East Asia.
Iona joined the Clinical Trial Service Unit and Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU) in 2009, to work on the China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB), including designing and conducting genomic and multi-omic assays to enhance and develop the CKB resources. Current research interests focus on using genetic and molecular epidemiology to understand the aetiology of cardio-metabolic and other chronic diseases, using genetic approaches to identify and evaluate potential drug targets, and investigating the role of infection in cancer risk, and the health effects of alcohol consumption. Iona co-leads a Genetic Epidemiology module for the MSc in Global Health Science and Epidemiology.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Clinical Trials
Jane Armitage is Professor of Clinical Trials and Epidemiology and Honorary Consultant in Public Health Medicine. In addition, she is Director of Training and Career Development for the Nuffield Department of Population Health.
She joined the Clinical Trial Service Unit, now part of NDPH, in 1990 having qualified in clinical medicine in 1979. She worked in a variety of specialties over several years with particular experience in respiratory medicine, geriatrics and diabetes. Since joining CTSU she has co-ordinated and been chief investigator for a series of large-scale randomised clinical trials in cardiovascular disease including the 20,000 participant MRC/BHF Heart Protection Study, the 12,000 patient SEARCH and 25,000 HPS2-THRIVE study, which are trials of lipid modification in people with or at risk of vascular disease. In addition she is Chief Investigator for the BHF-supported ASCEND trial of aspirin and fish oils involving 15,000 people with diabetes. She collaborates with other epidemiologists and statisticians in NDPH on a variety of genetic and other risk factor studies based on the trial cohorts. She also continues a clinical role in the Lipid Clinic at the Oxford University Hospital NHS Trust and has a particular interest in the safety of statins. Her main research interests are in lipids and the epidemiology of cardiovascular and other chronic diseases including osteoporosis.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology
Jonathan is Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology within the Nuffield Department of Population Health. After graduating in Mathematics in 1998, he studied statistics and epidemiology at MSc and PhD level before joining the Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit (CTSU) in 2004.
His main research involves studying the causes and prevention of cardiovascular diseases through the design, conduct and analysis of large-scale observational cohort studies, randomised controlled trials, and individual-participant-data meta-analyses of both types of study. He is the UK Principal Investigator and MRC Population Health Research Unit (MRC-PHRU) Programme Leader for the Mexico City Prospective Study, a blood-based prospective cohort study of 150,000 Mexican adults followed for more than 15 years.
Ling Yang qualified in Medicine at South-Eastern University (China) in 1995 then gained her MSc in Bio-statistics in 1998 there, and her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Tampere (Finland) in 2005.
Before moving to the University of Oxford in 2007, she worked at the Chinese Academy of Medical Science (CAMS) and Ministry of Health in Beijing (China), WHO International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon (IARC/WHO, France) and Karolinska Institute t in Stockholm (Sweden). She is a senior epidemiologist at CTSU and MRC PHRU, and leads the long-term follow-up working group, women health and infection & cancer research groups in the China Kadoorie Biobank study.
Ling's main research focus are on women's reproductive health, chronic infection and environmental causes of chronic diseases (especially cancer) based on large scale cohort studies, and evidence-based medicine using large national disease surveillance and risk factors survey data to provide strategies for chronic disease pre vention and control in developing countries.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Job Titles:
- Laboratory Scientific Director
Job Titles:
- Research Fellow, Clinical Trial Service Unit, University of Oxford
Job Titles:
- Professor of Renal Medicine and Clinical Trials
Job Titles:
- Professor of Epidemiology
Job Titles:
- Professor of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics, Director of Graduate Studies
Job Titles:
- Emeritus Professor of Medical Statistics and Epidemiology
Job Titles:
- Professor of Trials and Epidemiology of Kidney Disease, Renal Studies Group