Queen Mary appoints Claudia Langenberg as Director of new Precision Healthcare University Research Institute

Photo of Claudia Langenberg, Director of new Precision Healthcare University Research Institute

The PHURI will revolutionise precision healthcare from East London, changing lives locally and globally through ambitious and innovative patient-focused research in diverse communities.

The new 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.

The need for these innovations is particularly acute in East London where, on average, residents live 13 less years in good health than their London neighbours.

The 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.

Professor Langenberg was previously Professor of Computational Medicine at the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité (BIH) and Medical Research Council (MRC) Investigator and Programme Leader at the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge.

A public health clinician by training, her research is focused on the genetic basis of metabolic control, and her team studies its effects on health through integration of molecular with clinical data in large-scale patient and population-based studies.

Professor Langenberg, Director of the Precision Healthcare University Research Institute, said of her appointment: “Every patient deserves a precise diagnosis that enables targeted therapy and an informed answer to the simple question ‘how serious is my problem, doctor?’. Currently, this isn’t the case for many patients.

"We know that population groups in East London are underrepresented in research, and we want to change this. The creation of the PHURI allows us to focus on research that matters to our local population, treat patients according to their specific diagnosis, and generate knowledge that helps to achieve precision health care and better health for all. ‘From Whitechapel to the world’ is a phrase that immediately inspired me to take on this exciting opportunity.”

Professor Andrew Livingston, Vice-Principal for Research and Innovation, said: “We are thrilled Claudia is joining Queen Mary as Director of PHURI. She brings exceptional leadership experience and research expertise, all rooted in a passion for delivering better healthcare for patients, locally, nationally and internationally. I am very much looking forward to working with her in her new role.”

Professor Mark Caulfield, Vice-Principal for Health, said: “Claudia Langenberg brings world leading genetic epidemiology to unite health data, diagnostics, omics and imaging amidst a community of 2.5 million people from 97 nations which will allow us to make precision diagnoses and select the best treatments first time.”