Background

Stephen completed his BA and MMath (Part III) in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He studied for a PhD in the MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge, from 2008-11 working on methods for Mendelian randomization analysis under the supervision of Simon Thompson. He joined the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care of the University of Cambridge in 2011. In 2013, Stephen was awarded a Wellcome Trust entry-level fellowship (Sir Henry Wellcome Post-doctoral Fellowship) to continue theoretical and applied work in the field of Mendelian randomization. In 2017, he moved to the MRC Biostatistics Unit on a Wellcome Trust/Royal Society intermediate fellowship (Sir Henry Dale Fellowship) to establish a research group in the MRC Biostatistics Unit, where he is now a Programme Leader. In 2023, he was given a Career Development Award by the Wellcome Trust to continue work in this area. He leads a small team of researchers split between the MRC Biostatistics Unit and the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit. He is always open to requests for collaboration, either on theoretical or applied Mendelian randomization projects.

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Research Interests

Stephen's main area of research is causal inference and specifically methods for Mendelian randomization: the use of genetic variants to understand whether putative risk factors are causally related to specific disease outcomes (target validation). He is always open to requests for collaboration, either on theoretical or applied Mendelian randomization projects.

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Mendelian randomization book

The book “Mendelian Randomization: Methods for Using Genetic Variants in Causal Estimation”, by Stephen Burgess and Simon G Thompson was published by Chapman and Hall in 2015. A second edition of the book is due to be published in mid-2021. More details are available at the book website: www.mendelianrandomization.com. A short course which roughly follows the content of the book is run twice a year, once in the spring and again the late autumn.

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Recent Publications

A full list of citations can be found at https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TAE0DykAAAAJ&hl=en.