Projects

Cancer Grand Challenges

In my current position as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Cao Lab at Washington University in St. Louis, I am a part of Team PROSPECT (Pathways, Risk factors, and mOlecueS to Prevent Early-onset Colorectal Tumors), an international research collaboration co-led by Dr. Yin Cao and funded by the Cancer Grand Challenges initiative, co-founded by the two largest funders of cancer research in the world, Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute in the U.S. This prestigious program builds an elite, interdisciplinary community to tackle cancer’s most complex problems, and aims to accelerate high-impact research and translate discoveries for public and patient benefit through global team science.

My research in this team focuses specifically on the early-onset cancers challenge, seeking to understand the global increase in cancer incidence among adults under age of 50. This worrying trend of multiple cancer types cannot be fully explained by increased screening alone. We explore various changes in lifestyle and environmental exposures and risk factors, to uncover the underlying mechanisms driving these trends, with a focus on colorectal cancer.

Biomarkers of Osteoarthritis

In my previous role as a Research Data Analyst at the Leeds Institute of Rheumatic and Musculoskeletal Medicine, University of Leeds, I contributed to the data analysis of clinical studies and biomarker research, with a focus on osteoarthritis, under the supervision of Professor Philip Conaghan and Dr. Liz Hensor. By analyzing data from multiple osteoarthritis patient cohorts, including The Osteoarthritis Initiative (OAI), my research aimed to identify biomarkers associated with pain and other clinical outcomes in individuals living with osteoarthritis.

WHO STEPS

During my research fellowship at the Non-Communicable Diseases Research Center (NCDRC), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, I contributed to the design, implementation, data analysis, and publication of the study protocol and results for the 2021 WHO STEPwise approach to NCD risk factor surveillance (STEPS) survey in Iran. STEPS is a simple, standardized method for collecting, analyzing and disseminating data on key non-communicable diseases’ risk factors in countries. The survey instrument covers key behavioral risk factors including tobacco use, alcohol use, physical inactivity, unhealthy diet, as well as key metabolic risk factors including overweight and obesity, raised blood pressure, raised blood glucose, and abnormal blood lipids. My specific focus in Iran STEPS Survey 2021 was on survey design, diabetes mellitus prevalence and care cascade, cardiovascular health assessment using American Heart Association’s Life’s Simple 7 tool, metabolic syndrome subgroups and associations with ischemic heart disease and stroke, salt intake, and cancer screening.

Additionally, I was involved in the secondary analysis of the Iran STEPS Survey 2016 data, which led to publications on salt intake estimation using the small area estimation method and the burden of cardiovascular diseases attributable to total cholesterol using the population attributable fraction method. I also contributed to multiple other publications leveraging STEPS findings.

Quality of Care Index

During my research at NCDRC, I played a key role in developing the Quality of Care Index (QCI)—a metric designed to assess the quality of care for various diseases and injuries using epidemiological data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study. As part of a team of epidemiologists and biostatisticians, I contributed to the conceptualization and development of QCI, helping to refine its methodology and application.

Beyond the development of QCI, I led my project assessing global, regional, and national QCI trends for thyroid cancer, and contributed to multiple publications on this method. Building on this work, I proposed an expansion of QCI to evaluate the quality of care for disease risk factors, leading to the development of the Risk Factor Quality of Care Index (rQCI). This framework was applied to study the breast cancer quality of care, culminating in published findings that further advanced the understanding of healthcare quality in cancer management.

Global distribution of age‐standardized breast cancer QCI

Global Burden of Disease

Since 2021, I have been an active collaborator in the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, the largest and most comprehensive effort to quantify health loss across locations and over time, led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. I have contributed to refining the methods and results of burden of disease estimations in the GBD 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2023 iterations.

During my research fellowship at NCDRC, beyond developing the Quality of Care Index (QCI) using the GBD data, I gained proficiency in analyzing and interpreting complex epidemiological data, accessing and working with big data via tools such as GBD Compare, GBD Results Tool, and R programming language for statistical computing and data visualization, contributing to the development of population health metrics, and disseminating findings through high-impact publications. My efforts led to publications including the burden of disease estimations and health system performance in Iran published in Lancet, global burden of injuries and its risk factors, and burden of breast cancer and its risk factors in the North Africa and Middle East region. Additionally, I supervised a study on the temporal trend in the national and sub-national burden of cancers attributable to risk factors in Iran. These efforts have resulted in multiple high-impact publications, advancing knowledge on disease burden and population health across regions and countries.

HPACC

Global Health and Population Project on Access to Care for Cardiometabolic Diseases (HPACC) is an international research consortium established to meet the need for answers to key health policy and clinical questions relating to cardiometabolic diseases globally. This consortium obtains and harmonizes nationally representative survey data on cardiometabolic diseases with a focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to close existing research gaps. I have contributed to HPACC by providing data from WHO STEPS surveys data on cardiometabolic diseases and risk factors.

One of the publications I have contributed was on the variation in the proportion of adults in need of blood pressure-lowering medications by hypertension care guideline in LMICs, analyzing data of more than one million individuals from 50 nationally representative surveys, published in Criculation. Another study was on the national evidence on glucose-lowering medication use for diabetes, analyzing data from 62 LMICs, published in Nature Communications. Both studies provided crucial insights into the management of cardiometabolic diseases in resource-limited settings.

Non-Communicable Diseases

During my research at NCDRC, a significant part of my work focused on the epidemiology of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and their risk factors. I authored a highly cited review on NCD risk factors in Iran, which has had a notable impact in the field. Additionally, I collaborated with fellow researchers to examine the epidemiologic patterns of cancers, the burden of NCDs, and health inequalities related to NCDs in Iran. I also contributed to the design of the first nationally and sub-nationally representative NCD cohort study in Iran (Iran Cohort Study), which serves as a foundational study for future research on NCDs via recruitment of the participants of the Iran STEPS Survey 2016 as a cohort. So far, a publication on the demographic determinants and metabolic risk factors for NCDs in Iran has been published based on this cohort study.

With the emergence of COVID-19, my research expanded to investigate the intersection between NCDs and the pandemic. I led a study on Iran’s first online self-screening platform for COVID-19, assessing its effectiveness in early detection and public health response. Additionally, I led a research on the contribution of NCDs to COVID-19 mortality and co-authored several other studies examining the pandemic’s impact. Beyond epidemiology, I explored bioethical challenges during the pandemic, publishing a paper on the balance between healthcare workers’ autonomy rights and their duty to provide patient care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The vicious cycle of the COVID-19 and non-communicable diseases leading to a syndemic.

CovidSurg Collaborative

I was part of the CovidSurg Collaborative, a platform of studies aiming to explore the impact of COVID-19 in surgical patients and services, delivered by an international collaborating group of surgeons and anaesthetists from more than 80 countries, and funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery. I contributed to COVIDSurg3, an international prospective cohort study aiming to determine 30-day mortality in patients with peri-operative SARS-CoV-2 infection and inform future risk stratification, decision making and patient consent. As a hospital lead in the patient-level component of COVIDSurg3, I contributed to the data collection of patients undergoing surgeries in the colorectal and neurosurgical departments. Data for 18,320 patients from 868 hospitals in 88 countries were collected and anlyzed, and the results were published in a study entitled 30-day postoperative mortality and the effects of hospital preparedness during the COVID-19 pandemic: a pooled analysis of prospective international cohort studies in Lancet Regional Health – Europe.

Clinical Projects

During my medical training and post-graduation, I had the opportunity to work closely with clinical supervisors across various surgical specialties, contributing to research in multiple domains:

Through these multidisciplinary collaborations, I gained comprehensive clinical research experience, contributing to high-impact studies that bridge clinical practice with scientific advancements.