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ISCB Africa ASBCB Conference on Bioinformatics 2017

KEYNOTE SPEAKERS


JULIE MAKANI, PhD JULIE MAKANI, PhD
Associate Professor, Principal Investigator, 
Sickle Cell Programme
Department of Hematology and Blood Transfusion
Muhimbili University, Tanzania

How is Bioinformatics Influencing Health and Research in Africa? Experience from Sickle Cell Disease in Tanzania

> Click here for biography <

DANIEL MASIGA, PhD DANIEL MASIGA, PhD
Theme Leader, Animal Health
International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE)
Nairobi, Kenya

Towards elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs): Leaving genomics behind?

I am a vector/parasite biologist with research and development interests in infectious diseases of humans and animals in Africa.  I am head of the H3AbioNet node at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, icipe, where I am a Principal Research Scientist and head of the Animal Health Theme.  I will discuss Neglected Tropical Diseases within the context of disease elimination in the genomics era.

> Click here for biography <

B.F. FRANCIS OUELLETTE, PhD B.F. FRANCIS OUELLETTE, PhD
CSO, VP Scientific Affairs
Génome Québec

Open Data is Essential for Genomics

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NICOLE SORANZO, PhD  NICOLE SORANZO, PhD
Group Leader
Human Genetics
WellcomeTrust Sanger Institute (WTSI)
Professor of Human Genetics
University of Cambridge
United Kingdom

Genetic and Epigenetic Scans of Complex Human Traits

> Click here for biography <
 
BIOGRAPHIES
JULIE MAKANI, PhD
Julie Makani is Associate Professor at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), www.muhas.ac.tz in Tanzania. Tanzania has established one of the largest single-center, sickle cell disease (SCD) research programs in the world integrates healthcare, advocacy and education.

Julie trained in Medicine (Tanzania) and Internal Medicine (UK), and completed her PhD in clinical epidemiology of SCD. She received the 2011 Royal Society Pfizer Award for work in using anaemia in SCD as a model of translating genetic research into health benefit www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd17odE1YLs. She is a Fellow of Royal College of Physicians of United Kingdom and Tanzania Academy of Sciences.

www.globalsicklecelldisease.org/OurLeaders/juliemakani/index.aspx

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DANIEL MASIGA, PhD
Dan Masiga’s research focus is on tropical infectious diseases, which began with African trypanosomes, the subject of his doctoral studies, but extended to malaria and NTDs. He has led projects in these fields, and aims to use generic subjects such as genomics and bioinformatics to advance new knowledge, and develop tools that reduce the impact of tropical diseases. He sees his biggest contribution to science being to mentor young African scientists in the life sciences, and enabling them to take leadership roles in shaping the role of S&T in Africa's development. He is a previous president of ASBCB, and leader of the H3ABioNET node at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology. 

www.icipe.org/about/staff/daniel-masiga
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B.F. FRANCIS OUELLETTE, PhD
B.F. Francis Ouellette has recently (February 2017) started a new position as the Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Scientific affairs at Génome Québec, a not-for-profit organization that supports Genomics in Québec. Before that, Francis was the associate director of the Informatics and Biocomputing platform and a senior scientist at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) in Toronto, Ontario. Before his move to Toronto in 2007, Francis was an Associate Professor in the department of Medical Genetics at UBC, and Director of the UBC Bioinformatics Centre (UBiC) at the Michael Smith Laboratories. Francis was trained at McGill University (undergraduate and graduate studies), as well as the University of Calgary, McGill University and Simon Fraser University (graduate studies). After working on the yeast genome sequencing project at McGill University, he took a position at the NCBI as GenBank coordinator from 1993 to 1998. Francis also still holds a position of Associate Professor in the department of Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Toronto.

His work at the OICR involved bioinformatics training, as well as biocuration and management of cancer genomic data. He continues his bioinformatics training work with bioinformatics.ca at Génome Québec. Since his work at the NIH, coordinating the largest Open DNA sequence database in the World (GenBank), Francis has been dedicated to ensuring openness of Science: the data it generates, and the publications that report them. Not only through his work, but on the various advisory boards and editorial boards he serves on: PLOS Computational Biology Education Editor; Associate Editor for DATABASE, an OUP Open Access journal; a number of NIH-funded Open Source and Open Data resource projects: The Saccharomyces Genome Database SAB member, the Galaxy Project SAB member, The GenomeSpace advisory member; the Human Microbiome Project advisory member. Francis is also on the Elixir-Europe SAB as well as a co-chair of the H3ABionet SAB.

www.genomequebec.com/en/executive-management.html

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NICOLE SORANZO, PhD
Prof. Soranzo is a human geneticist working in the field of human complex trait genetics. Her research focuses on the application of large-scale genomic analysis to unravel the spectrum of human genetic variation associated with cardiometabolicand immune diseases, and its interaction with non-genetic and environmental cues. Prof. Soranzograduated in biological sciences at the University of Milano, Italy, with a dissertation on population and evolutionary genetics. She later obtained a PhD in genetics from the University of Dundee, and undertook post-doctoral training in human population and statistical genetics at University College London, conducting applied and methodological work in evolutionary genetics and association studies. In 2005 Prof. Soranzojoined the Pharmacogenomics Department at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development (Raritan, USA). In 2007 she joined the WellcomeTrust Sanger Institute, and since 2009 she has led her own team. In 2015 she was additionally appointed as Professor of Human Genetics at the School of Clinical Medicine of the University of Cambridge. Furthermore, Prof. Soranzois a member of the Cambridge University Platelet Biology and Cardiovascular groups, the NIHR Blood and Transplant Research Unit in Donor Health and Genomics and the EU BLUEPRINT and EpiGeneSysprojects. She serves in several steering committees and scientific advisory boards, and is on the editorial board for theEuropean Journal of Human Genetics,Genome Medicine,Trends in Genetics, andMolecular Biology and Evolution.

www.sanger.ac.uk/people/directory/soranzo-nicole
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