Instructors
Prof. Sami Khuri, Professor of Computer Science at San José State University, CA, USA.
Sami Khuri holds a M.Sc. degree in Mathematics, a M.Sc. in Computer Science and a PhD. in Computer Science, all three degrees from Syracuse University, USA.
He is a Professor of Computer Science at San Jose State University, where he mainly teaches bioinformatics. His main research interests lie in the development of probabilistic algorithms, such as Hidden Markov Models and Genetic Algorithms, for detecting patterns in DNA, RNA, and protein sequences. He is the recipient of several awards, including the Fulbright, the Dana Research, NSF, NIH, and two DAAD. He is also very interested in computer science education. He is the author of a number of publications in bioinformatics, in genetic algorithms and in the design and use of visualization and animation of algorithms in Computer Science education. He has given tutorials on Bioinformatics, Data Compression and Genetic Algorithms at international conferences and organized international conferences in Bioinformatics and Biomedical applications.
His international experience includes visiting positions at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Dortmund University and the Technical University of Munich in Germany, as well as universities in Finland, Spain, Switzerland, Bulgaria, and Lebanon.
His international experience includes visiting positions at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Dortmund University and the Technical University of Munich in Germany, as well as universities in Finland, Spain, Switzerland, Bulgaria, and Lebanon.
For extensive biography please visit the instructor page.
Prof. Peter J. Tonellato, Senior Research Scientist and Director and founder of the Laboratory for Personalized Medicine (LPM), Center for Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University, MA, USA, and Visiting Professor, Department of Pathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
Under Peter J. Tonellato’s leadership, the LPM develops strategies, methods, bioinformatic tools, and analyses to study and test the accuracy and clinical efficacy of genetic discoveries and accelerate their translation to practical clinical use. The LPM designs and executes insilico experiments to explore and solve barriers to translation from discovery to clinical use. Tonellato’s most recent work includes the creation of ‘clinical avatars’ used to simulate realistic patient populations and provide a collection of electronic medical records used to test the efficacy of genetic data, accuracy of predictive algorithms, and to conduct clinical trial simulations.
Tonellato is a former Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, Marquette University (1985-1994) and (founding) Director, Bioinformatics Research Center, Medical College of Wisconsin (1995-2004). His work at Wisconsin included the creation of the Rat Genome Database, the first disease-centric repository of phenotype and genetic data and the Program in Genomic Applications data mining system for a heterogeneous collection of phenotypes, microarray expression and genotypes. Tonellato is founder and former chairman of POINTONE Systems, LLC, the first personalized medicine software company to provide genetic enabled ‘best practice’ decision support system to hospitals and health care facilities. He has a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Puget Sound, an M.S. in applied mathematics from the University of Arizona, and following study at the University of Oxford and Hiroshima University, he earned a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Arizona.
For extensive biography please visit the instructor page.
Ms. Salima M’seffar, Head of the library at the National Institute of Hygiene, Morocco.
Ms. M’seffar received her BA in June 2004 from L’Ecole des Sciences de l’Information in Morocco with honors, and her certificate in Spanish in 2008. She joined the National Institute of Hygiene (Rabat, Morocco) in November 2004. She reopened and reorganized the library after 14 years of closure, giving the collection a new age and wider access. Being the only librarian in her institution, she provided reference assistance, managed new acquisitions and circulation. During her six years in the National Institute of Hygiene Ms. M’seffar was in charge of searching online databases in English, Spanish and French. Since the National Institute of Hygiene started working on its transition to becoming the National Public Health Agency, Ms M’seffar has supported its decision making through online searching and survey, and supporting ISO quality certification in Laboratories.
Ms. M’seffar has spent the past year at the National Library of Medicine, working on projects related to developing a digital library for the National Institute of Hygiene (Morocco), adding Arabic scripts to Voyager catalog and translating the Old Medline articles’ titles from French to English.
