The arrival of Professor Maik Pietzner as the new Chair for Health Data Modelling, shows that Queen Mary’s new Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (PHURI) continues to attract top academic talent from around the world.
Last week Professor Pietzner delivered his inaugural lecture on Queen Mary’s Mile End campus, entitled “From molecules to health records: finding new treatments for ‘understudied’ diseases”.
Professor Pietzner is currently group leader at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany, with a focus on the integration of molecular and clinical data to identify novel drug targets or opportunities to repurpose already existing drugs.
As the newly appointed Chair for Health Data Modelling, he has a keen interest in the computational integration of different health data modalities to translate (big) data into better health for patients, with a particular focus on underrepresented diseases and patient groups. Part of what attracted him to Queen Mary is the diversity of the local community.
Prof Pietzner said, “I am hugely excited about the opportunity to apply the methods we have developed to identify the causes and potential new therapeutic opportunities for the diversity of diseases relevant for patients here in East London; many of their diagnoses a have been neglected in research to date.”
His role is part of the Centre of Healthcare Data and Advanced Analytics at the PHURI, established in September 2022. PHURI’s multidisciplinary research spans all QMUL faculties with the aim to deliver precision healthcare to better understand and manage diseases in our diverse East London community and beyond.
The arrival of Professor Pietzner follows the appointment of Professor Mark Bradley as the Chair and Centre Lead for Therapeutic Innovation.Professor Bradley will join QMUL in August from Edinburgh University where he is Professor of High-Throughput Chemical Biology, in their School of Chemistry.
Professor Andrew Livingston, Vice-Principal for Research and Innovation, said: “We are thrilled that Mark is joining Queen Mary as a Chair and Centre lead at PHURI. He brings exceptional research and innovation experience and international standing. I am very much looking forward to working with him in his new role.”
Professor Claudia Langenberg, Director of the Precision Healthcare University Research Institute, said,“I am delighted to welcome such high calibre scientists to PHURI and look forward to working with them and their teams to develop and deliver new patient-focused healthcare innovations.”
Precision Healthcare University Research Institute (PHURI) was formed with the aspiration of revolutionising precision healthcare from East London, changing lives locally and globally through innovative patient-focused research in diverse communities.
The cross-faculty institute builds on the powerful partnership between Queen Mary University of London and Barts NHS Trust. It will continue the organisations’ shared focus on accelerating the latest healthcare innovations from bench to bedside to deliver better health for all.
PHURI will drive research to better understand how disease impacts different patient groups and work in close partnership with the Trust to use real-world clinical data to drive the development and targeted prescription of treatments based on patients’ needs. This will help to build a stronger health service for the people of East London, the UK and the world.
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