BHF Career Development Fellow
Email: xj262@medschl.cam.ac.uk
Background
I am a research associate working on translating statistical genetic tools to clinical practice. I work with with Professor Mike Inouye and Professor John Danesh, with close collaboration with Professor Alkes Price at Harvard University. I got my DPhil in Genomic Medicine and Statistics from Oxford University, funded by a Rhodes Scholarship and a Wellcome Trust studentship. I delivered the scholar address (name for a student speech delivered at the scholarship graduating ceremony) for the Rhodes scholar class of 2017. At the beginning of Pandemic, I worked as a consultant to the Gates Foundation and China CDC. Before my DPhil I worked on neural imaging modelling, analysing both structure and functional MRI data. I received my BSc from Fudan University.
Research interests
I am a statistical geneticist working on the genetic architecture of complex diseases and its implications in clinical practice. Specifically, my research focuses on constructing risk factors using many variables that each have a small effect on diseases. The variables include genotype data, proteomic data, gene expression data and hospitalisation data (EHR). I like to think of disease as a stochastic process and disease risk on the “liability” scale. In statistical terminology, my research involves Bayesian inference for high dimensional data, longitudinal analysis and causal inference.
Selected Publications
Jiang, X., Gong, W., Gao, Y., Fraser, C., & Holmes, C. (2021). Modelling the impact of rapid tests, tracing and distancing in lower-income countries suggest optimal policies varies with rural-urban settings. medRxiv. (second round review for Communications Medicine)
Jiang, X., Holmes, C., & McVean, G. (2021). The impact of age on genetic risk for common diseases. PLoS genetics, 17(8), e1009723.