Thomas Agbaedeng

Dr Thomas A. Agbaedeng is a Senior Researcher at the Big Data Institute, Oxford Population Health and Nuffield Department of Medicine, working with Professor Trey Ideker. He develops experimentally grounded virtual-cell models that combine interpretable and agentic artificial intelligence with multimodal cellular data and closed-loop perturbation experiments. His role focuses on predicting disease-relevant cell states, identifying causal mechanisms and therapeutic targets, and using experimental results to iteratively improve computational models.

His research spans functional genomics, human disease modelling, cardiovascular and neurovascular biology, and translational therapeutics. He combines single-cell and spatial multi-omics, CRISPR-based perturbation, human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) models, primary cell systems, advanced imaging, and computational biology to determine how genetic variation, regulatory elements, cellular states, and intercellular signalling contribute to disease. A central aim is to connect genetic variants to regulatory mechanisms, altered cell states, and measurable functional consequences.

Before joining Oxford Population Health, Thomas worked on the SECURE consortium in Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, to help develop human iPSC-derived blood–brain barrier and neurovascular unit models and integrating these with single-nucleus and spatial analyses of human brain tissue. Previously, he held a Novo Nordisk Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Oxford, where he investigated epigenetic and non-coding mechanisms in atherosclerosis and developed expertise in genome engineering, single-cell genomics, bioinformatics, and human disease modelling. He completed his PhD in cardiovascular research at the University of Adelaide, investigating obesity-related atrial fibrillation and sudden cardiac death through evidence synthesis and preclinical disease models.