The Applied Bioinformatics MSc is taught by a wide range of subject specialists from both Cranfield University and externally, who draw on their research and industrial expertise to provide stimulating and relevant input to your learning experience.
Find out more about our Applied Bioinformatics teaching team below:
Dr Fady Mohareb: Applied Bioinformatics MSc Course Director
Fady Mohareb is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Bioinformatics Group at Cranfield University. He has +10 years of experience in the field, and his research focuses on genome and transcriptome informatics, machine learning, data science, data visualization and cloud technologies. He is leading the NGS and 3GS informatics work at Cranfield on a number of national and international consortia. Dr Mohareb also has an established track record in the development and of bioinformatics software tools for managing and analysing high throughput genomes, proteomics or metabolic data. His research includes the application of machine learning and pattern recognition to reveal hidden patterns in multivariate and high throughput datasets, as well as the application of the latest Web technologies and Cloud Computing to provide means for managing and visualising large datasets. He has extensive knowledge and experience in developing Web-based interactive frameworks for managing high-throughput experimental datasets.
Teaching activities:
Fady is the Course Director and will be managing the majority of the taught modules and the group projects on the course.
Professor Conrad Bessant – Professor of Bioinformatics QMUL
Conrad Bessant is professor of bioinformatics at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). His primary research is identification and quantitation of proteins and metabolites from highly multivariate datasets, such as those obtained from mass spectrometry. Applications include biomarker discovery, medical diagnostics and systems biology. As well as conducting research, Conrad is also active in teaching and is director of the bioinformatics masters programme at QMUL.
Teaching activities:
Conrad will be teaching on Module 4 'Proteome Informatics'.
Dr Enrico Ferrero - Scientific Leader at GSK
At GSK, Enrico works as a data scientist in the Computational Biology group within Target Sciences. Working across the Respiratory and Immuno-Inflammation therapeutic areas, he focuses on the analysis of epigenomics, regulatory genomics and transcriptomics data for target identification and validation as well as on the application of data mining, machine learning and other computational biology approaches to the GSK drug discovery pipeline.
Teaching activities:
Enrico will be teaching in Module 7 'Data Integration and Regulatory Network' and Module 8 'Advanced Sequencing Informatics and Systems Biology'.
Dr Lee Larcombe - Applied Exomics Ltd Director
Lee’s research focuses mainly on functional genomics, and data integration for the study of oncology and the discovery of novel biomarkers and targets. He has a long-standing collaboration with the McFarlane lab (North West Cancer Research Fund) at Bangor University where he holds an Honorary Lectureship, and where he is leading development of a new MSc programme in Genomic & Precision Medicine.
Lee has broad experience of teaching and training, including development of training strategy. He was the Training Coordinator for the UK node of the pan-European ELIXIR project.
Teaching activities:
Lee will be teaching on Module 4 'Proteome Informatics'.
Dr Robert King – Bioinformatician at Rothamsted Research
Robert is a bioinformatics scientist at Rothamsted Research,working on the application of next generation sequencing data to increase yield of agricultural crops, like wheat, and identify molecular targets for pest management. Robert has produced de novo genome assemblies, and corrected new and existing genomes using Illumina and PacBio data, followed by gene annotation/correction using the Maker pipeline with custom Perl/Python scripts. Current focus is to use RNA-seq analysis of time course data from fungi and plant species and the integration of omics data sets and associated bioinformatics analyses to identify molecular targets linked to phenotypes.
Teaching activities:
Rob will be teaching on Module 3 'Next Generation Sequencing Informatics'.
Dr Luca Bianco Bioinformatics Research Scientist – Fondazione Edmund Mach
Luca has 10+ years of experience in the field. His research activity is focused on Next Generation Sequencing data analysis with bioinformatics tools. The aim is to improve existing genomes like that of the Malus X Domestica by using deep sequencing data.
Teaching activities:
Luca will be teaching a substantial part of Module 8 'Advanced Sequencing Informatics and Systems Biology'.
