Kyriaki Michailidou

Kyriaki Michailidou serves as Associate Professor at the CING Postgraduate School and Head of the Biostatistics Unit at The Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics (CING), while maintaining a visiting researcher position at the Centre for Cancer Genetic Epidemiology, University of Cambridge. Her expertise bridges statistical genetics and clinical applications in cancer research.

Her academic foundation includes:

• PhD in Genetic Epidemiology (2015) from the University of Cambridge, UK
• MSc in Applied Statistics (2009) from the University of Oxford, UK
• BA in Mathematics (2008) from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Dr. Michailidou's research centers on statistical genetics and genetic epidemiology, with emphasis on breast cancer susceptibility. As a lead member of the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) and Evidence-Based Network for the Interpretation of Germline Mutant Alleles (ENIGMA), she has pioneered the discovery of breast cancer risk variants, fine-mapping of genomic regions, and development of polygenic risk scores. Her work directly impacts clinical risk prediction models and classification of Variants of Uncertain Significance (VUS) in cancer genes, translating genomic findings into clinical practice.

Analysis of her publication record reveals consistent focus on large-scale genomic studies of breast cancer, particularly estrogen-receptor-negative subtypes. Her research demonstrates progression from locus discovery (2013-2017) toward clinical application through polygenic risk modeling (2019), with increasing emphasis on subtype-specific risk prediction and variant classification. International consortia collaboration remains central to her methodology.

Dr. Michailidou actively contributes to three major international research networks:

• Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC)
• Consortium of Investigators of Modifiers of BRCA1/2 (CIMBA)
• Evidence-based Network for the Interpretation of Germline Mutant Alleles (ENIGMA)

Through the Biostatistics Unit at CING, she leads computational genomics research while mentoring postgraduate students. Her current initiatives focus on refining polygenic risk scores, developing VUS classification frameworks, and discovering novel cancer biomarkers through international consortium data.