King's College London

Professor Iacoangeli is the lead of a joint programme between the Department of Basic & Clinical Neuroscience and the Department of Biostatistics & Health Informatics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London. In addition, he is deputy theme lead for Motor Neuron Disease (MND) at the NIHR Maudsley BRC. Alfredo has established an international reputation for his research, received significant awards, and attracted a steady stream of research funding. He also leads the ALS Precision Discovery Consortium team that has just received a Discovery Award as part of the Longitude Prize on ALS.

As part of the lecture, he took the audience on a journey from his early studies in biology and physics to his current work in precision medicine, using state-of-the-art computational methods to understand the links between genetics and neurodegenerative disease.

He started his career in biology and went on to study a BSc in Physics and an MSc in Biophysics in Rome where he discovered the power of mathematics and physics to explain the natural world and how biology works.

After a period working in Biophysics, he accepted his PhD "cum laude" in Life Sciences in 2016 from Sapienza University of Rome where he worked in the field of structural bioinformatics with a particular focus on protein structure prediction and protein-peptide interaction.

He joined King’s in 2016 where he pursued his developing interest in applied science in a postdoctoral project focussed on data management of big data in Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He joined at an exciting time for the field, as technological advances and the emergence of big data approaches were revolutionising research in this area. As part of this role, he joined Project MinE, an international whole-genome sequencing initiative aimed at studying the genetic basis of ALS.

He moved on to study human genome sequences using big data and highlighted the importance of this work to help improve understanding of diseases. Through these large-scale studies they have been able to dissect the shared and independent genetic architectures that that govern different aspects of the ALS phenotype such as risk, survival and the age of onset of the disease.

In his lecture he outlined how using big data helps us to: capture human diversity, track changes over time to understand disease and treatment response and drive precision medicine.

Cathryn Lewis, Professor of Genetic Epidemiology & Statistics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience and Head of the School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences, introduced the lecture, praising Professor Iacoangeli for his research across traditional academic boundaries which is highly valued at King’s.

The Vote of Thanks was given by Professor Richard Dobson, Professor of Medical Bioinformatics and Head of the Department of Biostatistics & Health Informatics, who congratulated Professor Iacoangeli on the depth of his career and a remarkable commitment to interdisciplinary science. He commended his enthusiasm and adaptability. He described Alfredo’s work as sitting at the intersection of data science, genomics and neuroscience using computational and machine learning approaches to tackle some of the most complex challenges in human health. The convergence of disciplines is a necessity which helps lead to meaningful advances in medicine.

Watch the full recording of the Inaugural Lecture

For more information, please contact Michele Harris-Tafri (School of Mental Health & Psychological Sciences Communications Manager).