Xinchun Gu

I am an epidemiologist and pharmacist with a research interest on applying machine learning methods to large-scale health data. My work spans two main areas: (1) respiratory infectious diseases and vaccination, and (2) pharmaceutical management of chronic and acute pain.

I primarily use data from the Oxford-Royal College of General Practitioners Research and Surveillance Centre (Oxford-RCGP RSC), which collects routinely recorded primary care data from over 2,000 practices across England and Wales. Using these data, I study trends in respiratory infectious diseases and their treatment in the UK. I also have extensive experience working with Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) data and its linked databases.

I supervise students on the DPhil in Evidence-Based Health Care and MSc in Applied Digital Health programmes. I am a tutor for the Meta-Analysis module and the Big Data Epidemiology module in MSc degree programs. I am keen to hear from prospective students interested in pursuing a DPhil at the intersection of infectious diseases, primary care research, and medical AI.

Prior to joining the University of Oxford, I completed my PhD in pharmacoepidemiology at the University of Manchester, focusing on the safety of gabapentinoids in patients with chronic non-cancer pain in primary care. I earned a Master's degree in Clinical Pharmacy from Peking University, specialising in endocrinology, and a Bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical Science from Sun Yat-Sen University.