Anastasia Filia, PhD, bioinformatics researcher in Dr Boumpas Lab, was one of the 6 Basic Science abstract awardees at European Rheumatology (EULAR) congress 2019 in Madrid.

Dr Filia, was honoured for her work on the prediction of major organ involvement in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). She and her associates used machine learning and RNA sequencing to detect the smallest number of genes predicting organ involvement using blood samples from 150 patients with SLE.

A 25-gene signature was used to predict organ involvement with high accuracy, sensitivity and specificity. Following validation, such a signature could be used in the clinic to determine optimal treatment & management strategies.

Her work was done at BRFAA in collaboration with Drs M Dermitzakis (BRFAA and University of Geneva) and G Bertsias (University of Crete) groups.