Nicosha B Desouza

Biography

Obtained a B.Sc in Microbiology (2007) from Goa University, M.Sc in Quantitative Genetics and Genome Analysis (2008) from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Molecular Epidemiology of Lung Cancer from the University of Liverpool (2014). Currently working as a statistician/epidemiologist at the University of Dundee on the project “Molecular epidemiology of Clostridium difficile in Scotland“ since April 2014.

Research Interest

Has experience in handling human genome data for statistical analyses associated with while genome studies. Also, experienced in handling healthcare datasets involving demographic and patient associated information. Analysed whole genome data in a case control analysis to identify genomic variants associated with lung cancer. Conducted pathway analysis as well as survival analysis to identify crucial pathways and variants associated with shorter survival in lung cancer patients, respectively. Developed incidence model that predicted the incidence on lung cancer using the Health Episode Statistics (HES) dataset. Proficient in various programming softwares such as Java and Perl and also use of statistical packages such as R and STATA. Current research involves linking Scottish healthcare data and bacterial sequence data using isolates from patients. Research also covers analysing bacterial whole genome sequences to look for any transmission patterns and survival analysis of patients to evaluate the effect of gene specific mutations and whole genome variations.