Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Antonella Delmestri

PhD


Lead Health Data Scientist

  • Alan Turing Fellow
  • CPRD fob holder for NDORMS
  • EHDEN UK data science technical lead
  • EHDEN OMOP common data model specialist

I am a computer scientist and software engineer at the Centre for Statistics in Medicine at NDORMS. I am responsible for the automation of data engineering, data modelling and advanced curation of real-world data (RWD) routinely collected by GPs, hospitals and registries, and used in observational research.

My research is focussed on the impact of algorithmic automation on RWD processing, its role in the statistical pipeline and its impact on the medical research output. My main interests are:

  • data engineering, data modelling and advanced curation of RWD
  • evaluation and improvement of RWD quality
  • assessment, measurement and enhancement of algorithmic complexity
  • research quality, ethics, reproducibility, consistency and transparency

BIOGRAPHY

I graduated in Computer Science at Udine University and completed my PhD in Information and Communication Technologies at Trento University, Italy. I have worked for several years in companies developing firmware and software for electronic devices.

In 2006 I moved to the U.K. to join the Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU) at Oxford University. My biggest achievement in this role was the whole IT management of ATLAS (Adjuvant Tamoxifen Longer Against Shorter), a long-term early breast cancer randomised controlled clinical trial. ATLAS involved more than 15,000 women recruited from over 600 sites in more than 20 countries worldwide, and its findings on patients' survival and recurrence using 5 versus 10 years of Tamoxifen changed clinical practice in the UK and worldwide.

In 2013 I joined NDORMS to lead the big data management of the Epidemiology Unit, and I started developing Curator, a data science tool for RWD, which has allowed for the delivery of more than twenty-five observational studies so far. In 2017 I was given solo responsibility for the NDORMS CPRD fob. In 2018 I joined the European Health Data and Evidence Network (EHDEN) collaboration and in 2019 I became responsible for OHDSI UK Data Science activities. In 2021 I was awarded an Alan Turing Fellowship