DrAngela Pinot de Moira

I am an epidemiologist whose research focuses on understanding how social, environmental and animal exposures shape health across the life-course, with a particular focus on respiratory and brain health. With my background in immunology, my research also examines the role of the microbiome, pathogens and the immune response in these associations. My research draws on birth cohorts, linked population data and federated analytic approaches, and I have a longstanding interest in data harmonisation and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) research.

I am currently funded by HDRUK as part of the Social and Environmental Determinants of Health Driver Programme. I joined Imperial College in 2022 on an NHLI fellowship to investigate social inequalities in respiratory health using data from a network of UK birth cohort data known as UNICORN (Unified Cohorts Research Network). Before starting at Imperial I was a postdoc in Professor Anne-Marie Nybo Andersen’s Perinatal, Obstetric & Paediatric Epidemiology research group at the University of Copenhagen where I held a Lundbeck Foundation fellowship to investigate the influence of early-life animal exposure on the gut microbiome and the risk of asthma. This work has subsequently extended to other health outcomes and potential microbial and pathogen-related pathways. It was during this time that I developed an interest in cross-cohort collaboration due to my involvement in establishing the EU Child Cohort Network, a FAIR network of European and Australian birth cohort data.

My interest in asthma and allergic disease developed during my PhD and early postdoc in Professor David Dunne’s Schistosomiasis Research Group at the University of Cambridge. Here I applied multidisciplinary techniques to investigate the immunoepidemiology of helminth infections such as schistosomiasis and hookworm in East Africa, including how these parasitic worms may protect against asthma and allergy.

I am a member of the DataSHIELD steering committee, which is an infrastructure and series of R packages that enables the remote and non-disclosive analysis of sensitive research data. I also co-lead the DataSHIELD Communications and Outreach theme.