Chengxuan Qiu

I am an Associate Professor (Docent) and Senior Lecturer in epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet and Deputy Division Head of the Aging Research Center (ARC) at KI. I joined Karolinska Institutet (KI) in 1999. My research interests concern epidemiology of dementia, neuropathological mechanisms of dementia, vascular brain aging, and intervention strategies to prevent dementia. I am leading a research group that seeks to explore the connection of the heart, the brain, and the mind (cognition) in the aging process from a life-course perspective. The goal of our research is to identify effective interventions to promote brain health in aging and to delay the onset of dementia and functional disability by understanding the relationships of lifelong cardiovascular health, psychosocial health, and genetic factors to late-life brain aging, cognitive health, and physical function.

• Research Group Leader and Deputy Division Head (enhetschef och biträdande sektionschef), Aging Research Center (ARC), Karolinska Institutet, 2018-
• Member of the Steering Committee, Center for Alzheimer’s Research (CAR), Karolinska Institutet, 2018-
• Member of the Executive Group, The Strategic Research Areas in Epidemiology and Biostatistics (SfoEpi), Karolinska Institutet, 2017-2024 

Degrees and Education

• Postdoctoral Fellow in Neuroepidemiology, National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland, USA, 2006
• Doctor Of Philosophy, Department of Neurobiology, Care Sciences and Society, Karolinska Institutet, 2004
• Doctor Of Philosophy in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (former Tongji Medical University), Wuhan, Hubei, China, 1999
• Master’s degree in Epidemiology, School of Public Health, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China, 1990
• Medical Degree, Shandong University Cheeloo College of Medicine (former Shandong Medical University), Jinan, Shandong, China, 1985
  
  

Research Projects

• Principal Investigator (PI), MIND-China—The Multimodal Interventions to Delay Dementia and Disability in Rural China (2018-ongoing), a collaborative project between ARC at KI and the Department of Neurology at Shandong Provincial Hospital in Jinan, Shandong, China (Prof Yifeng Du), partly supported by research grants from the Swedish Research Council (VR) and the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte). MIND-China has become a world unique research data infrastructure that can be used for translational research of cognitive health, brain health in aging, and healthy aging. MIND-China is one of the five founding projects of the World-Wide FINGERS Network, a global network for risk reduction and prevention of dementia (https://www.alz.org/wwfingers/).
• PI, CHAP—The Confucious Hometown Aging Project (2010-2015), which is aimed at investigating cardiovascular risk factors and atherosclerotic mechanisms in aging and health. CHAP was conducted by the Department of Neurology at Jining No. 1 People’s Hospital, Jining, Shandong, China (Prof Zhongrui Yan), in collaboration with ARC at KI.  
• My research has also involved several population-based projects such as the Kungsholmen Project and the Swedish National study on Aging and Care in Kungsholmen (SNAC-K) in central Stockholm, the Age, Gene/Environment Susceptibility (AGES)-Reykjavik Study in Iceland, the Cardiovascular Risk Factors, Aging and Dementia (CAIDE) in Finland, the multicenter Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) Brain MRI substudy in USA, and the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS) and the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) in China.

Since 2011, I have been leading the course of “Geriatric Epidemiology” for public health epidemiology of the Master’s Program in Public Health Sciences at Karolinska Institutet (KI). In addition, I am teaching in several doctoral courses at KI such as the Vascular Brain and the Application of Epidemiological Approaches to Aging Research.