Trainer biographies
Zhichao Miao – EMBL-EBI
I am a Group Leader of a computational biology group at Guangzhou National Laboratory, and I am also a professor at Guangzhou Medical University. I was a postdoc fellow and later a senior bioinformatician in the single-cell expression atlas group at European Bioinformatics Institute-EMBL. So I have experience in single-cell computation for more than seven years. I am been a trainer in the EMBL-EBI course for the past four years. I have published more than ten papers related to single-cell transcriptomics around algorithm design, COVID immunology and neurosciences. You can find more information about my research from my lab page: www.rnacentre.org
Nancy George – EMBL-EBI
Functional Genomics Submissions Project Lead at the EBI Gene Expression team
Marisa Loach – Open University
Marisa started learning bioinformatics in her spare time, but now spends her days working on it as a PhD student at the Open University. Her project involves analysing single-cell RNA sequencing data in Galaxy to understand the differences between healthy and diseased cells – from identifying lncRNAs associated with cancer to working out the proportions of different cell types in the placenta.
Irene Papatheodorou – EMBL-EBI
Irene Papatheodorou leads the Gene Expression team, which focuses on gene expression analyses at tissue and single cell level across species. Her team delivers tools and services for the submission, archiving, analysis and visualisation of functional genomics experiments. After completing her degree in Genetics at University College London, Irene focused on Bioinformatics through her MSc and PhD studies at Imperial College.
Mehmet Tekman – Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Mehmet is a bioinformatician with speciality in Galaxy and single-cell.
Graeme Tyson – Open University
In 2017 I graduated with a BSc in Computational Technology from the Open University in the UK. I then completed an MRes in Parasite Control at Aberystywth University – my thesis was a genomic study of the human pathogen Cyclospora cayetanensis. In 2022 I started a part time, cross discipline PhD with The Open University researching the enhancement of data driven discovery by immunologists. There I am part of the Bacon Group which looks at multi-omics single cell technologies in general and scRNAseq in particular.
Iris Diana Yu – EMBL-EBI
Iris is a bioinformatician in the data production team of the Expression Atlas group in EMBL-EBI. She helps build, maintain, and improve the pipelines that produce the datasets made available via the Expression Atlas and Single-Cell Expression Atlas resources. Prior to this role, she was a research bioinformatician at the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines, and a service bioinformatician at the Core Facility for Bioinformatics of the Philippine Genome Center. In those roles, she had the opportunity to handle omics projects that ranged across the health, agriculture, and biodiversity fields. Iris, currently a Cambridge resident, was born and raised in the islands of the Philippines.
Andrew Stubbs – Erasmus MC
Dr Stubbs is a PI in the Department of Pathology and Clinical Bioinformtaics. He and his team support translational research at EramusMC (EMC) including the application of machine learning and deep learning to deliver predictive models form multi-omics experiments, in translational and clinical research projects. These projects include solid tumours, inflammatory response, cardiovascular disease and biomakers to assess transplant rejection. Galaxy is a key workflow application that his team uses to deliver both small scale analysis and develop large scale bioinformatics services both for EMC and EU.
Iguaracy Pinheiro de Sousa – EMBL-EBI
PhD in Medical Sciences at Heart Institute – USP (University of São Paulo, Brazil) where I combined a range of omics data and in vitro methods to better understand vascular disorders, focused on endothelium dysfunction. Currently, a postdoctoral fellow at EMBL-EBI analyzing scRNA-seq data to extract bi-directional cell signalling signatures. Experience in cellular and molecular biology, vascular biology and bioinformatics.
Anil Thanki – EMBL-EBI
Anil Thanki works as a senior bioinformatician in the Gene Expression team, which focuses on gene expression analyses at tissue and single cell level across species. Before he completed his PhD in Bioinformatics from University of East Anglia, UK and worked as a postdoc at Earlham Institute, UK,
Zhichao Miao – EMBL-EBI
I am a Group Leader of a computational biology group at Guangzhou National Laboratory, and I am also a professor at Guangzhou Medical University. I was a postdoc fellow and later a senior bioinformatician in the single-cell expression atlas group at European Bioinformatics Institute-EMBL. So I have experience in single-cell computation for more than seven years. I am been a trainer in the EMBL-EBI course for the past four years. I have published more than ten papers related to single-cell transcriptomics around algorithm design, COVID immunology and neurosciences. You can find more information about my research from my lab page: www.rnacentre.org
Nancy George – EMBL-EBI
Functional Genomics Submissions Project Lead at the EBI Gene Expression team
Marisa Loach – Open University
Marisa started learning bioinformatics in her spare time, but now spends her days working on it as a PhD student at the Open University. Her project involves analysing single-cell RNA sequencing data in Galaxy to understand the differences between healthy and diseased cells – from identifying lncRNAs associated with cancer to working out the proportions of different cell types in the placenta.
Irene Papatheodorou – EMBL-EBI
Irene Papatheodorou leads the Gene Expression team, which focuses on gene expression analyses at tissue and single cell level across species. Her team delivers tools and services for the submission, archiving, analysis and visualisation of functional genomics experiments. After completing her degree in Genetics at University College London, Irene focused on Bioinformatics through her MSc and PhD studies at Imperial College.
Mehmet Tekman – Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Mehmet is a bioinformatician with speciality in Galaxy and single-cell.
Simone Webb – Newcastle University
Dr Simone Webb is an Associate Fellow & Research Associate in Bioinformatics at Newcastle University’s Faculty Medical Sciences (UK) and Visiting Scientist at Wellcome Sanger Institute’s Cellular Genetics department (UK). She has specialised in the fields of single-cell RNA sequencing analysis, immunology and haematopoiesis.
Graeme Tyson – Open University
In 2017 I graduated with a BSc in Computational Technology from the Open University in the UK. I then completed an MRes in Parasite Control at Aberystywth University – my thesis was a genomic study of the human pathogen Cyclospora cayetanensis. In 2022 I started a part time, cross discipline PhD with The Open University researching the enhancement of data driven discovery by immunologists. There I am part of the Bacon Group which looks at multi-omics single cell technologies in general and scRNAseq in particular.
Iris Diana Yu – EMBL-EBI
Iris is a bioinformatician in the data production team of the Expression Atlas group in EMBL-EBI. She helps build, maintain, and improve the pipelines that produce the datasets made available via the Expression Atlas and Single-Cell Expression Atlas resources. Prior to this role, she was a research bioinformatician at the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines, and a service bioinformatician at the Core Facility for Bioinformatics of the Philippine Genome Center. In those roles, she had the opportunity to handle omics projects that ranged across the health, agriculture, and biodiversity fields. Iris, currently a Cambridge resident, was born and raised in the islands of the Philippines.
Andrew Stubbs – Erasmus MC
Dr Stubbs is a PI in the Department of Pathology and Clinical Bioinformtaics. He and his team support translational research at EramusMC (EMC) including the application of machine learning and deep learning to deliver predictive models form multi-omics experiments, in translational and clinical research projects. These projects include solid tumours, inflammatory response, cardiovascular disease and biomakers to assess transplant rejection. Galaxy is a key workflow application that his team uses to deliver both small scale analysis and develop large scale bioinformatics services both for EMC and EU.
Iguaracy Pinheiro de Sousa – EMBL-EBI
PhD in Medical Sciences at Heart Institute – USP (University of São Paulo, Brazil) where I combined a range of omics data and in vitro methods to better understand vascular disorders, focused on endothelium dysfunction. Currently, a postdoctoral fellow at EMBL-EBI analyzing scRNA-seq data to extract bi-directional cell signalling signatures. Experience in cellular and molecular biology, vascular biology and bioinformatics.
Anil Thanki – EMBL-EBI
Anil Thanki works as a senior bioinformatician in the Gene Expression team, which focuses on gene expression analyses at tissue and single cell level across species. Before he completed his PhD in Bioinformatics from University of East Anglia, UK and worked as a postdoc at Earlham Institute, UK,
Julia Jakiela – University of Edinburgh
Julia is a Medicinal and Biological Chemistry student at the University of Edinburgh. She is an interdisciplinarity enthusiast, hence her interest in applying computational methods in biology, chemistry and medicine. Her big step into data analysis was by joining Experimental Biophysics and Space Sciences research group and afterwards working on compression effects on pouch cells using electrochemical modelling. She got experience in teaching by leading the Informatics in Cognitive Science lab sessions showing how to use implemented cognitive models; she also co-led the Chromosome Simulation Workshop using LAMMPS – the molecular dynamics simulator. As an EPSRC Bioinformatics intern she started working in Galaxy, particularly in the area of trajectory analysis methods used in single cell RNA-sequencing. She has found contributing to Galaxy Training Network so enjoyable that she continues it until today.