Shiva Abedinzadeh - PhD profile

Can you tell us a little about yourself and where you’re coming from, both academically and geographically?

I'm originally from Iran, where I completed my medical degree at Tehran University of Medical Sciences. I continued my career as both a general physician and a researcher in the field of endocrinology and metabolism, and then moved into a role as a clinical research associate at a pharma company, where I got the chance to develop my data analysis skills. I have now moved to Stockholm to start my PhD at Karolinska Institutet, bringing together my clinical background with a growing interest in data-driven research.

What motivated you to pursue a PhD, and what drew you specifically to Endotrain as a doctoral network?

I wanted to work at the interface between clinical practice, data science, and translational research, somewhere my clinical background could actually help build and validate new tools, not just apply existing ones. This is exactly what drew me to ENDOTRAIN: the chance to combine clinical data with omics approaches to understand the biology behind it and translate that understanding back into the clinic. The network's structure with multidisciplinary teamwork and the chance to work across different institutions and fields felt like the right environment.

Where will you be based during your PhD, and what are you most looking forward to about living and working there?

I will be based in Stockholm, Sweden, at Karolinska Institutet, within the Endocrinology and Autoimmune Diseases research group, which I'm really excited about it. Stockholm has such a great balance of a strong historic environment and easy access to nature. I'll also have secondments at the University of Bergen in Norway and in Manchester, UK, which I'm looking forward to as a chance to experience different clinical settings and explore new places along the way.

At this very early stage, how would you describe your PhD project in broad, non‑technical terms?

My project looks at how people with primary adrenal insufficiency respond to different types of hormone replacement therapy. Right now, doctors have no reliable blood test to tell them whether someone's replacement dose is "just right," too high, or too low, so adjustments are largely based on symptoms. My project aims to change that: by combining blood and tissue-level hormone measurements with continuous data from wearables and detailed molecular profiling, we want to help identify measurable signs of when replacement therapy is working well. Ultimately, the goal is to give clinicians better tools to fine-tune treatment for these patients.

During your PhD, what specific skills, methods, or areas of expertise are you most looking forward to learning?

I'm looking forward to going deep into omics methods like proteomics and metabolomics, and learning how to take that kind of molecular data and combine it with dynamic hormone profiling and wearable-derived data into something clinically meaningful. I'll also be taking primary responsibility for the omics side of a multicenter clinical study, from lab workflows through to bioinformatic analysis, which will really strengthen my data integration and computational skills. 

What are you most looking forward to about learning and working within an international doctoral network like Endotrain?

Being part of a network that spans clinical medicine, engineering, and data science means I'll get to see how researchers from very different backgrounds approach the same underlying problem from completely different angles. I'm especially looking forward to the collaborative side of things: my own project feeds into a larger ENDOTRAIN manuscript on digital twin modelling, so I'll be working closely with people building the mathematical and wearable side of the puzzle, not just the biology.

What do you enjoy doing outside of work that helps you relax and recharge after a long day of research?

I love being outdoors! Hiking and biking are my go-to ways to switch off and recharge after a day of research. I'm also a huge animal lover and nature enthusiast in general, so any excuse to be out in green spaces, around animals helps resetting my mind.

As you begin your Endotrain journey, what are you most curious or enthusiastic about right now?

Working in digital endocrinology is very exciting. Right now, I'm most looking forward to meeting the rest of the network. We're all coming into ENDOTRAIN from different paths, and I'm glad we'll get to learn from each other along the way.