Originally from Spain, Dr Viñuela studied biology, genetics and computational biology before completing her doctoral degree in quantitative genetics with Professor Kammenga at Wageningen University, in the Netherlands. Afterwards, she held research positions working with Professor Spector and Professor Small at King’s College London, and with Professor Dermitzakis at the University of Geneva, in Switzerland. In 2020, she was awarded a Newcastle University Academic Track Fellowship to work on Data Science for Health. 

Dr Viñuela uses multi-level molecular data produced by high-throughput methods such as sequencing or mass-spectrometry to understand the genetic basis of complex, common age-related diseases such as Type 2 Diabetes. By combining deep phenotyping with genetic information, computational methods are applied to identify the molecular and genetic causes of complex diseases, leading to potential therapeutic targets. Dr Viñuela has led and contributed to a number of international consortia looking into human genetic complex disease using multiple tissues and molecular phenotypes, including GTEx, InsPIRE, TwinsUK, GAIT2 and DIRECT. 

Keywords: Gene expression, computational biology, genomics, quantitative genetics, complex traits, diabetes, ageing, metabolic diseases, multi-omics datasets.