About
Dr Bruna Rubbo is a Senior Research Fellow with the Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (PCD) team. She is supported by a Southampton Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) Bridging Fellowship, awarded in 2024.
Her research involves various aspects of delivery of care for patients with PCD, from early diagnosis to monitoring lung function. She is also interested in exploring applications of novel methods to better understand relationships and interactions in complex data (e.g. omics data in PCD).
Research
Research interests
- Primary ciliary dyskinesia
- Rare diseases
- Epidemiology
- Causal inference
- Longitudinal data
Current research
Dr Rubbo's current research is focused on different aspects of clinical care for patients with PCD.
Appropriatness of FEV1 to monitor pulmonary disease in PCD
The extent to which changes in lung function are due to natural variability in patients with PCD is unknown. PROVALF-PCD is a large international prospective cohort with 252 participants from 19 PCD centres in 12 countries established by Dr Rubbo to assess intra-individual variability in FEV1 derived from spirometry.
Service delivery for PCD across different countries
Service delivery models for PCD vary between and within countries. Using a mixed-methods approach, Dr Rubbo developed a survey, based on in-depth intreviews that she conducted with PCD expert from different countries, to describe different referral, diagnosis, management, and funding structures available in over 30 countries.
Predictive screening tools for PCD
PICADAR is a simple diagnostic clinical prediction tool with good accuracy and validity that can be used by respiratory clinicians when considering who to refer to PCD centres for further testing. A modification of this tool have been developed for adults, but is yet to be validated. There are no modified tools for neonates and young children. This project aims to validate the modified version of PICADAR for adults, and develop and validate a version for children under the age of 4 years old.
Research projects
Completed projects
Publications
Teaching
Dr Rubbo co-supervises 2 PhD students at the University of Southampton and 1 PhD student at the University of Bristol.
She also supervises BMedSc projects.
Biography
Bruna Rubbo received her medical degree in 2006 from the Faculdade de Ciencias Medicas da Santa Casa de Sao Paulo (Brazil). She worked as GP for 3 years before relocating to the UK to obtain her MSc. She was awarded a BRC scholarship to undertake a MSc in Clinical and Experimental Medicine at UCL, which she completed with distinction in 2011. She worked as a research assistant with the Clinical Epidemiology group at UCL from 2012 to 2014, and then as a senior research assistant with the Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia (PCD) group at the University of Southampton between 2015 and 2020.
She undertook a PhD with the PCD group under the supervision of Professor Jane Lucas, and was awarded a PhD in Clinical Epidemiology by the University of Southampton in 2021. During her PhD, she explored the application of different methods (e.g. topological data analysis) to analyse small and complex datasets in PCD.
Upon completion of her PhD, she trained as a postdoctoral scholar in workforce research at the University of Southampton, where she developed skills in longitudinal and multilevel modelling. She relocated to California (USA) to train as a postdoctoral scholar in environmental epidemiology for a year, at the University of Southern California (USC). During her time in the US, she trained in non-linear longitudinal modelling and metabolomics. Upon completion of her scholarship, she returned to the UK to work in suicide prevention research at the University of Bristol, in collaboration with the Centre for Pesticide Suicide Prevention at the University of Edinburgh. In this position, she evaluated the effects of policy interventions in observational study designs (e.g. interrupted time series analyses).
She was awarded a BRC Bridging Fellowship in 2024 to develop fellowship and project proposals with the PCD group at University of Southampton.
Prizes
- NIHR BRC Bridging Fellowship (2023)
- Abstract Scholarship by the American Thoracic Society Assembly on Respiratory Structure and Function (2020)
- Circassia Prize for Best Poster Presentation (2019)
- Outstanding contribution to the Organisation of the BEAT-PCD Conference (2019)
- Outstanding contribution to the organisation of the BEAT-PCD Conference (2018)
- Vertex Prize for Best Poster Presentation (2017)
- UCLH/UCL Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre bursary (2010)