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Dr Colette Christiansen

Profile summary

  • Regional Academic Staff
  • Staff Tutor and Senior Lecturer in Mathematics and Stat
  • Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics
  • School of Mathematics & Statistics
  • colette.christiansen

Professional biography

I am a Senior Lecturer and Staff Tutor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics and I have been teaching statistics at the Open University since 2019.  I have a PhD in Epigenetics from King's College London. Prior to moving into academia I was a consulting actuary.

Research interests

My research interests are in applying mathematics and statistics to biology, particularly in the field of genetics and epigenetics.  I chair the Mathematical Biology research group and I am keen to promote interdisciplinary working.  I am also a Lead for the Open Societal Challenges research programme.

Teaching interests

My teaching interests are in statistics.  I currently teach M249 "Practical Modern Statistics" and have previously taught M140 "Introduction to Statistics".  In addition I am Deputy Chair for M348 "Applied Statistical Modelling".

Impact and engagement

I am a member of the GRACE project (Genetics Raising Awareness through Community Engagement) 

Externally funded projects

BioDogCom: a Communication System for Bio-Detection Dogs to Inform the Development of Diagnostic Bio-Electronic Sensors to the Open University and Medical Detection Dogs
RoleStart dateEnd dateFunding source
Co-investigator01 Oct 202530 Sep 2028Petplan Charitable Trust

Grounded in prior research and its promising early findings, this project aims to support the development of a canine bio-detection system for human disease diagnostics, through the funding of a PhD studentship in Artificial Intelligence (AI) applied to Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI). Bio-detection with dogs has significant potential for early disease diagnostics but it also still presents significant limitations. This doctoral project will leverage animal-centred interaction to unlock the potential of bio-detection with dogs, bringing together sensor data sources and machine learning methods to detect, interpret and model the nuances of dogs’ olfactory stimulus response to biological compounds. This will lead to dramatic improvements in the early, non-invasive, safe, fast and inexpensive diagnosis of medical conditions including aggressive cancers, bacteria and viruses, by expediting the development of effective bio-electronic sensors for large-scale diagnostics and by informing strategies for the treatment of aggressive cancers, with a particular focus on colorectal cancer as a case study.

Publications

Enhanced resolution profiling in twins reveals differential methylation signatures of type 2 diabetes with links to its complications (2024-05)
Christiansen, Colette; Potier, Louis; Martin, Tiphaine C.; Villicaña, Sergio; Castillo-Fernandez, Juan E.; Mangino, Massimo; Menni, Cristina; Tsai, Pei-Chien; Campbell, Purdey J.; Mullin, Shelby; Ordoñana, Juan R.; Monteagudo, Olga; Sachdev, Perminder S.; Mather, Karen A.; Trollor, Julian N.; Pietilainen, Kirsi H.; Ollikainen, Miina; Dalgård, Christine; Kyvik, Kirsten; Christensen, Kaare; van Dongen, Jenny; Willemsen, Gonneke; Boomsma, Dorret I.; Magnusson, Patrik K. E.; Pedersen, Nancy L.; Wilson, Scott G.; Grundberg, Elin; Spector, Tim D. and Bell, Jordana T.
EBioMedicine, 103, Article 105096

Area-level factors associated with variation in involuntary psychiatric hospitalisation across England: a cross-sectional, ecological study. (2024)
Minchin, Matilda; Christiansen, Colette; Maconick, Lucy and Johnson, Sonia
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology ((Early access))

Factors Affecting Students’ Likelihood to Access Feedback (2024)
Christiansen, Colette; Calvert, Carol and Morris, Clare
Educational Researcher ((early access))

Stratified genome-wide association analysis of type 2 diabetes reveals subgroups with genetic and environmental heterogeneity (2023-08-15)
Christiansen, Colette E.; Arathimos, Ryan; Pain, Oliver; Molokhia, Mariam; Bell, Jordana T. and Lewis, Cathryn M.
Human Molecular Genetics, 32, Article ddad093(16)

Accelerated epigenetic aging and DNA methylation alterations in Berardinelli-Seip congenital lipodystrophy (2023-06-01)
Qannan, A; Bejaoui, Y; Izadi, M; Yousri, N; Razzaq, A; Christiansen, C; Martin, G; Bell, J; Horvath, S; Oshima, J; Megarbane, A; Ericson, J; Pourkarimi, E and Hajj, N
Human Molecular Genetics, 32(11) (pp. 1826-1835)

Integrative genomic analyses in adipocytes implicate DNA methylation in human obesity and diabetes (2023-05)
McAllan, Liam; Baranasic, Damir; Villicaña, Sergio; Brown, Scarlett; Zhang, Weihua; Lehne, Benjamin; Adamo, Marco; Jenkinson, Andrew; Elkalaawy, Mohamed; Mohammadi, Borzoueh; Hashemi, Majid; Fernandes, Nadia; Lambie, Nathalie; Williams, Richard; Christiansen, Colette; Yang, Youwen; Zudina, Liudmila; Lagou, Vasiliki; Tan, Sili; Castillo-Fernandez, Juan; King, James W. D.; Soong, Richie; Elliott, Paul; Scott, James; Prokopenko, Inga; Cebola, Inês; Loh, Marie; Lenhard, Boris; Batterham, Rachel L.; Bell, Jordana T.; Chambers, John C.; Kooner, Jaspal S. and Scott, William R.
Nature Communications, 14, Article 2784

Genetic Impacts on DNA methylation help elucidate regulatory genomic processes (2023)
Villicana, Sergio; Castillo-Fernandez, Juan; Hannon, Ellis; Christiansen, Colette; Tsai, Pei-Chen; Maddock, Jane; Kuh, Diana; Suderman, Matthew; Power, Christine; Relton, Caroline; Ploubidis, George; Wong, Andrew; Hardy, Rebecca; Goodman, Alissa; Ong, Ken and Bell, Jordana
Genome Biology, 24, Article 176(1)

A faecal metabolite signature of impaired fasting glucose: results from two independent population-based cohorts (2023)
Nogal, Ana; Tettamanzi, Francesca; Dong, Qiuling; Louca, Panayiotis; Visconti, Alessia; Christiansen, Colette; Breuninger, Taylor; Linseisen, Jakob; Grallert, Harald; Wawro, Nina; Asnicar, Francesco; Wong, Kari; Baleanu, Andrei-Florin; Michelotti, Gregory A.; Segata, Nicola; Falchi, Mario; Peters, Annette; Franks, Paul W.; Bagnardi, Vincenzo; Spector, Tim D; Bell, Jordana T; Gieger, Christian; Valdes, Ana M and Menni, Cristina
Diabetes Care, 72(12) (pp. 1870-1880)

Metabolomic biomarkers of habitual B vitamin intakes unveil novel differentially methylated positions in the human epigenome (2023)
Costeira, Ricardo; Evangelista, Laila; Wilson, Rory; Yan, Xinyu; Hellbach, Fabian; Sinke, Lucy; Christiansen, Colette; Villicana, Sergio; Masachs, Olatz; Tsai, Pei-Chen; Mangino, Massimo; Menni, Christina and Bell, Jordana
Clinical Epigenetics, 15, Article 166

Adipose methylome integrative-omic analyses reveal genetic and dietary metabolic health drivers and insulin resistance classifiers (2022)
Christiansen, Colette; Tomlinson, Max; Eliot, Melissa; Nilsson, Emma; Costeira, Ricardo; Xia, Yujing; Villicaña, Sergio; Mompeo, Olatz; Wells, Philippa; Castillo-Fernandez, Juan; Potier, Louis; Vohl, Marie-Claude; Tchernof, Andre; Moustafa, Julia El-Sayed; Menni, Cristina; Steves, Claire J.; Kelsey, Karl; Ling, Charlotte; Grundberg, Elin; Small, Kerrin S. and Bell, Jordana T.
Genome Medicine, 14, Article 75(1)

Age acquired skewed X chromosome inactivation is associated with adverse health outcomes in humans (2022)
Roberts, Amy L.; Morea, Alessandro; Amar, Ariella; Zito, Antonino; El-Sayed Moustafa, Julia S.; Tomlinson, Max; Bowyer, Ruth C. E.; Zhang, Xinyan; Christiansen, Colette; Costeira, Ricardo; Steves, Claire J.; Mangino, Massimo; Bell, Jordana T.; Wong, Chloe C. Y.; Vyse, Timothy J. and Small, Kerrin S.
eLife, 11, Article e78263

Novel DNA methylation signatures of tobacco smoking with trans-ethnic effects (2021)
Christiansen, C.; Castillo-Fernandez, J. E.; Domingo-Relloso, A.; Zhao, W.; El-Sayed Moustafa, J. S.; Tsai, P.-C.; Maddock, J.; Haack, K.; Cole, S. A.; Kardia, S. L. R.; Molokhia, M.; Suderman, M.; Power, C.; Relton, C.; Wong, A.; Kuh, D.; Goodman, A.; Small, K. S.; Smith, J. A.; Tellez-Plaza, M.; Navas-Acien, A.; Ploubidis, G. B.; Hardy, R. and Bell, J. T.
Clinical Epigenetics, 13(1)

Estrogen and COVID-19 symptoms: Associations in women from the COVID Symptom Study (2021)
Mullins, Edward; Costeira, Ricardo; Lee, Karla A.; Murray, Benjamin; Christiansen, Colette; Castillo-Fernandez, Juan; Ni Lochlainn, Mary; Capdevila Pujol, Joan; Macfarlane, Heather; Kenny, Louise C.; Buchan, Iain; Wolf, Jonathan; Rymer, Janice; Ourselin, Sebastien; Steves, Claire J.; Spector, Timothy D.; Newson, Louise R. and Bell, Jordana T.
PLOS ONE, 16(9) (e0257051)

Bayesian reassessment of the epigenetic architecture of complex traits (2020)
Trejo Banos, Daniel; McCartney, Daniel L.; Patxot, Marion; Anchieri, Lucas; Battram, Thomas; Christiansen, Colette; Costeira, Ricardo; Walker, Rosie M.; Morris, Stewart W.; Campbell, Archie; Zhang, Qian; Porteous, David J.; McRae, Allan F.; Wray, Naomi R.; Visscher, Peter M.; Haley, Chris S.; Evans, Kathryn L.; Deary, Ian J.; McIntosh, Andrew M.; Hemani, Gibran; Bell, Jordana T.; Marioni, Riccardo E. and Robinson, Matthew R.
Nature Communications, 11(1)

Twins and family epigenetic studies of Type 2 Diabetes (2021-08-27)
Christiansen, Colette; Potier, Louis and Bell, Jordana T
In: Li, Shuai and Hopper, John L eds. Twin and Family Studies of Epigenetics. Translational Epigenetics (pp. 105-118)
ISBN : 978-0-12-820951-6 | Publisher : Elsevier