The Health Data Science research group is part of the Research Centre for Optimal Health within the University of Westminster's School of Life Sciences. Established in 2022, the Health Data Science research group focuses on the use of Big Data and related analytical methods to investigate health span and accelerated ageing.
While ageing is a universal phenomenon, the process varies considerably between individuals and populations, with some experiencing ‘healthy ageing’ while others undergo ‘unhealthy or accelerated ageing’. The consequence of this is that some individuals experience a greatly truncated ‘health span’. The reasons for this are many but both modifiable (lifestyle/environment/disease) and non-modifiable (genetic) factors are implicated.
Interventions modulating the interaction between modifiable and non-modifiable factors are essential to determine the individual’s chance to attain healthy longevity. Tackling a question of this magnitude requires a variety of data analysis methods and their integration within well-established clinical and biobank population data:
- To leverage the power of biobanks and population-scale repositories to characterise non-inheritable diseases contributing to ageing
- To determine the extent to which evolving genome-phenome-wide analyses can inform lifestyle choices and preventative health interventions
- To develop tools supporting the identification of novel biomarkers and the diagnosis and prognosis of diseases associated with accelerated ageing
The Health Data Science research group has expertise in bioinformatics, data science, precision phenotyping, deep learning, metabolomics, and genomics to address these.