University of Birmingham Dubai to host Covid-19 Workshop: 'AI to Leverage Biomedical Big Data' to launch new bioinformatics programme

• Online event on 1^st May to discuss COVID-19 research around AI and biomedical big data
• New MSc Bioinformatics to launch in September 2021

The University of Birmingham Dubai has appointed a programme lead for the new MSc in Bioinformatics, which will start in September 2021. Dr Danesh Moradigaravand will be running a workshop this Saturday, 1^st May, to introduce the programme for anyone interested in learning more about bioinformatics.

Together with Professor Jean-Baptiste Cazier, Director of the Centre for Computational Biology (CCB) and Chair of Bioinformatics, Alan Turing Fellow, participants will be taken through a range of research projects undertaken by the Centre for Computational Biology (CCB) at the University of Birmingham. The multi-disciplinary centre has played a central role in the pioneering clinical research on COVID-19, by providing descriptive, diagnostic and prescriptive data-driven insights to understand the epidemiology of COVID-19 and identify risk factors at the population level.

Professor Cazier and Dr Moradigaravand will also present the broad ongoing research programs in other subfields of health data science at the CCB, including human population diversity of Middle Eastern populations, and environmental bioinformatics.

As the first face-to-face graduate MSc program of its kind in the Gulf region, the University of Birmingham Dubai’s MSc in Bioinformatics has been designed to address the particular existing needs and knowledge gaps in interdisciplinary quantitative biomedical fields in the region.

Dr Moradigaravand comes to Dubai from the University of Birmingham’s UK campus where he has been lecturing in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology for the last three years. His research aims to provide a better understanding of evolutionary dynamics of bacterial populations. To this end, he develops theoretical evolutionary genetics models and computational frameworks and conducts genomic data analyses by taking a machine learning approach. In particular, the focus is on the evolution of antibiotic resistance in pathogens in clinical and non-clinical settings.

The event ‘‘AI to Leverage Biomedical Big Data’ will take place online Saturday 1^st May from 3pm - 4pm. Find out more about the event here: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/dubai/events/dubai-events-2020-21/ai-to-leverage-biomedical-big-data-saturday-1-may.aspx

As the first global top 100 and UK Russell Group university to establish a campus in Dubai, Birmingham offers programmes in business, economics, computer science, mechanical engineering, accounting, money banking and finance, psychology and international law and globalisation, as well as teacher training.

To find out more about the courses available at the University of Birmingham Dubai, please visit https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/dubai . 

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For more information, please contact: Samantha Dancy, Footstep Communications  sam@footstepcommunications.com 

About University of Birmingham Dubai

• The University of Birmingham is the first global top 100 and UK Russell Group university to establish a campus in Dubai
• The University of Birmingham Dubai opened its doors to students in September 2018 and offers degrees that are taught, examined and accredited to the same recognised high standards as those delivered on its UK campus.
• The University of Birmingham Dubai offers programmes in teacher training, business, economics, computer science, and mechanical engineering, accounting and finance, money banking and finance, and international law and globalisation.
• The University is renowned for its research excellence and its researchers have received 11 Nobel Prizes. From pioneering organ transplants, discovering gravitational waves and furthering understanding of Shakespeare, to developing cures for cancer, advances in robotics and revealing the structure of DNA, the University has been at the forefront of some of the most ground-breaking discoveries of the last 100 years.
• Birmingham is acknowledged for producing globally employable graduates. The University of Birmingham is the second most frequently targeted UK university for top employers looking for graduate recruits, according toHigh Fliers Research.

© Press Release 2021