PhD Research Studentships

Leveraging multi-omics and digital twins to understand mechanisms of blood pressure with atrial fibrillation

Supervisors:	Caroline RONEY, Patricia Munroe and Will Young
Apply by:	28 January 2026
Start in:	September (Semester 1)

Description

Atrial fibrillation (AF) affects over 1.5 million people in the UK and almost 50 million worldwide, representing a major cause of stroke and heart failure. Hypertension affects over 1 billion people worldwide and due to its high prevalence is thought to be the single greatest contributor to AF, with over 50% of patients with AF having comorbid hypertension. Genetic studies have identified over 350 AF loci and 2000 blood pressure (BP) loci, and Mendelian randomization analyses show that a genetically predicted 10 mmHg increase in BP raises AF risk by 17–25%. However, the biological mechanisms linking BP and AF remain unclear. This PhD project aims to investigate rare and common variant BP mediators on risk of AF and identify the important metabolomic, proteomic and ancestry-specific relationships. We aim to develop and test a framework for incorporating the effects of genetics and BP on cardiac electrophysiology using multi-omics data with personalised cardiac electromechanical digital twins for long-term AF prediction. By extending existing digital twin pipelines to incorporate BP profiles, genetic variation, and population diversity, the project will develop a framework for combining multi-omics with cardiac digital twin models to understand BP-AF mechanisms, enabling personalised AF risk predictions. 

You’ll work as part of the Personalised Cardiac Modelling Lab (https://pcmlab.co.uk/) and the ElectroGenomics Group (https://electrogenomics-group.github.io

Funding

Funded by: China Scholarship Council
Candidate will need to secure a CSC scholarship.
Under the scheme, Queen Mary will provide scholarships to cover all tuition fees, whilst the CSC will provide living expenses and one return flight ticket to successful applicants.

Eligibility

• The minimum requirement for this studentship opportunity is a good honours degree (minimum 2(i) honours or equivalent) or MSc/MRes in a relevant discipline.
• If English is not your first language, you will require a valid English certificate equivalent to IELTS 6.5+ overall with a minimum score of minimum score of 6.0 in each of Writing, Listening, Reading and Speaking).
• Candidates are expected to start in September (Semester 1).

Contact

For informal enquiries about this opportunity, please contact Caroline RONEY, Patricia Munroe or Will Young.

Apply

Start an application for this studentship and for entry onto the PhD FT Medical Engineering full-time programme (Semester 1 / September start):

Apply Now »

Please be sure to quote the reference "SEMS-PHD-690" to associate your application with this studentship opportunity.

Related website:	https://pcmlab.co.uk/
Keywords:	Bioinformatics, Genetics, Bioengineering, Biomedical Engineering, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Modelling, Statistics, Cardiology