Researcher profile

Andrea Cipriani

Andrea Cipriani is Professor of Psychiatry and NIHR Research Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and Clinical Lead of the Bipolar Disorder Research Clinic. He is currently the Director of the NIHR Oxford cognitive health Clinical Research Facility and of the Data Science Theme of the Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre, he leads the Oxford Precision Psychiatry Lab and is the Editor in Chief of BMJ Mental Health. His main interest in psychiatry is evidence-based mental health and his research focuses on the evaluation of treatments in psychiatry, mainly major depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. His research in the methodology of evidence synthesis has now a specific focus on data science and precision mental health, trying to assess the validity, breadth, structure and interpretation of innovative statistical and machine learning approaches to better inform the decision-making process between patients and clinicians and personalise treatment in routine clinical care. Professor Cipriani has published 456 articles (on Scopus), with Scopus h-index of 72. More than 20 of his papers are among the Highly Cited Papers in Web of Science (InCites Essential Science Indicators), and since 2009 he has published 13 original articles in The Lancet, eight of which as first or last author. He has been Highly Cited Researcher (Clarivate) for the past 5 years in the field Psychiatry/Psychology, and has been collaborating with international experts from other fields of medicine, especially neurology. Working with a wide range of colleagues globally from different disciplines, Professor Cipriani developed and tested novel statistical techniques in evidence synthesis and applied clinical research that facilitate the translation of evidence synthesis into individualised routine clinical care and improve patients’ outcomes. For example, he validated innovative methods to identify specific patient characteristics that have an impact on treatment response, dose optimisation and premature treatment discontinuation in depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and for the first time in mental health ranked evidence-based interventions using comparative effectiveness research to guide clinicians to choose the best pharmacological treatment for each patient. He is the Chief Investigator of PETRUSHKA (£2m) and PRADA (£5m), two international randomised controlled trial that aim to personalise pharmacological treatment for adults with major depressive disorder in the UK, but also with sites in Brazil, Canada, Nigeria and Pakistan. With the WHO, he co-authored a manual on psychopharmacology, which provided evidence-based information to guide and influence health care professionals in low- and middle-income countries. As part of the WHO Gap Action Programme, this manual was distributed as a reference source to assist general practitioners in using evidence-based medicines for mental disorders in routine clinical practice. Professor Cipriani is also the Director of GALENOS (https://www.galenos.org.uk/) and on the Editorial Board of the Lancet Psychiatry. Since moving to the UK in 2013, he has been a regular and sought-after speaker at public engagement events locally, nationally and also internationally. He was part of the expert reference group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists for developing Choosing Wisely in the UK, aiming to promote conversations between doctors and patients to understand and share decisions on the basis of the best evidence. He has presented and discussed his research on live television (BBC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation News), recorded documentaries (BBC One Panorama, Danish Broadcasting Corporation), radio (BBC Radio 4, BBC World, BBC Oxford, LBC) and newspapers in the UK and internationally.