Pirro Hysi, MD, PhD

Dr. Pirro Hysi joined the University of Pittsburgh in 2025 after 16 years at the Kings’ College London (University of London). Most recently he held the position of Reader, which includes tenure and is similar to the role of Associate Professor in the United States.

Dr. Hysi specializes in studying large data sets provided by third party companies. He analyzes “biomarkers,” or characteristics that may or may not determine a likelihood of developing a given disease. He primarily studies samples provided by humans and does not use wet lab approaches. He looks for causes of disease in the general population, investigates how to intervene and change the processes that are causing disease, and determines how to prevent the disease from occurring through public health approaches.

Throughout his career, Dr. Hysi has worked in San Francisco, Chicago, and London. In San Francisco, he primarily studied neurological and vascular diseases but also began to look at eye diseases, examining the relationship between parts of an organism and how they impacted each other. In Chicago, Dr. Hysi deepened his focus on genetics and honed his data analytics capabilities. In London, Dr. Hysi was recruited for his expertise in working with data, and he assisted with twin studies to determine which causes of disease were genetic and which were more likely to be environmental. Some of his most impactful research identified the largest causes of disease, including a paper looking at the relationship between metabolism and glaucoma.