Maira Khan

Maira is interested in applying statistical genetic methods, including Mendelian Randomisation and colocalization, in studying sex differences within risk factor profiles and how they modulate cancer risk. 

She started as a DPhil student at the Cancer Epidemiology Unit (CEU) in 2021, working with Professor Ruth Travis, Professor Tim Key and Dr Karl Smith-Bryne on using genetic information on metabolic and immunomodulatory risk factors to study their association with cancers.

Her DPhil is generously supported by the departmental scholarship. Maira hopes she can contribute towards improving the understanding of sex-specific medicine, precision medicine and overall cancer research. When not found frantically making sense of R code in a library, she spends time at Oxford scouring through fashion shows, playing lawn tennis and 'real' tennis.

Prior to this, Maira graduated with an MPhil in Epidemiology at the University of Cambridge in 2021. Her MPhil thesis, supervised by Dr Stephen Burgess and Dr John Perry, explored how genetically predicted levels of testosterone in men and women were associated with cardiovascular health, using individual level patient data from the UK Biobank.

In 2019, she completed her undergraduate from Royal Holloway University of London where she read Biology. Through her undergraduate thesis, Maira explored sex-specific differences in cancer incidence amongst pre- and post-menopausal women and men using the NIH-SEER Cancer databank.