Dr. Ziwen (Cass) Li is a Research Fellow in Health Data Science at the Institute for Neuroscience and Cardiovascular Research at the University of Edinburgh. She specialises in healthcare data analysis, involving data wrangling, visualisation, statistical modelling, machine learning, and web app development.

Dr. Ziwen (Cass) Li studied Medicine and undertook clinical training in China. She moved to Scotland in 2011 to pursue an MScR in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Edinburgh and later completed her PhD under Professor David Price in Developmental Neurobiology. She joined the Centre for Cardiovascular Science in 2017 as the senior postdoc in Professor Mairi Brittan’s group working on Cardiovascular Regeneration. In 2023, she moved to Professor Nick Mills’ group as a postdoctoral data scientist, focusing on cardiac troponin and its application in acute care settings. She was awarded a British Heart Foundation Project Grant in 2025 to investigate the prevalence and mechanism of macrotroponin complex formation to help inform clinical practice.

Heart disease remains a global burden. Fast and accurate diagnosis is key to improving patient outcomes and care system efficiency. I analyse health care data collected from clinical trials and observational studies to evaluate the impact of different diagnostic blood tests on patients and care systems, derive robust diagnostic thresholds to ensure comparable performance across subgroups, and assess opportunities to improve efficiency of existing clinical pathways while maintaining patient safety.  

Cardiac troponin is central to the diagnosis of myocardial infarction. I’m currently assessing the impact of switching troponin assays on clinical outcomes through interrupted time series analysis, optimising an accelerated diagnostic pathway to improve safe early discharge, and investigating interferences in troponin assays including macrotroponin.