Chloe Yap

I am an early-career clinician-researcher in psychiatry, working in Professor Rachel Upthegrove's Immuno-metabolism & Severe Mental Illness Group group within the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre.

Unlike most other areas of medicine, psychiatry still relies on subjective assessments to fit people into heterogeneous diagnostic categories. While these categories help to guide prognosis and treatment, we still too often fall short, particularly for people living with severe mental illness.

My research aims to improve diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of severe mental illnesses (e.g., bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, major depression). My core skillset is in analysis of large clinical and multi-omic (genomics, epigenomics, metabolomic, metagenomic) datasets with an understanding of clinical heterogeneity. My current interests include:

1. Identifying clinical phenomena that may point towards more biologically homogeneous groups and then reverse translating them to hone in on potential mechanisms.
2. Forward translating promising leads for new biomarkers or treatments.

Prior to joining the University of Oxford, I completed my MD-PhD in 2022 at the University of Queensland, and started psychiatry training in Brisbane with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists. My PhD work (supervisors: Prof Jacob Gratten and Prof Naomi Wray) largely involved analysis of the Australian Autism Biobank - a multi-omics dataset with deep clinical phenotyping - and included a stint at UCLA on a Fulbright scholarship. I retain an honorary position with the University of Queensland and Mater Research.