Building pan-African Bioinformatics Capacity
University of Cape Town, Department of Pathology Division of Human Genetics
Member Node
University of Cape Town, Department of Pathology Division of Human Genetics
Member Node
The node's current research focuses on the computational and statistical methods for uncovering the genetics and environment architecture of genetic diseases, variation in drug/treatment response and investigating and developing various methodologies and tools to improve the analysis of large scale next-generation sequencing and genomic studies such as genome-wide association studies or fine-mapping studies and, medical population genetics.
Prof Emile R. Chimusa - Associate Professor and Node PI
I am a mathematical population geneticist whose research focuses on the computational and statistical methods for uncovering the genetics and environment architecture of complex genetic diseases and variation in drug/treatment response. I am Senior Lecturer and group leader of "Computational Population Genetics and Genetics Epidemiology" at the division of Human Genetics,IDM, Department of pathology within the University of Cape Town. I have extensive experiences and have investigated and developed various methodologies and tools to improve the analysis of large scale next generation sequencing and genomic studies such as genome-wide association studies or fine-mapping studies and medical population genetics.
BioinformaticsGenomicsMathematicsComputational Biology Gene ExpressionComparative GenomicsRNA-SeqSequence Analysis Genetic VariationSequence AssemblyApplied MathematicsStructure Analysis Whole Genome SequencingMedical InformaticsData Identity and Mapping Data Integration and WarehousingData MiningData VisualizationDrug Discovery Drug MetabolismEvolutionary BiologyGWAS StudyExome Sequencing Functional GenomicsPopulation GenomicsStatistics and Probability Gene and Protein FamiliesGene ExpressionGenotype and PhenotypeHuman Genetics Infectious DiseaseMachine LearningMolecular Interactions, Pathways and Networks PharmacogenomicsPopulation GeneticsSimulation Experiment
Mr. Denis Awany - PhD Student
Denis Awany is a PhD Student at the Division of Human Genetics, Department of Pathology, University of Cape Town - South Africa. Prior to commencing his PhD programme, Awany worked with Muni University as assistant lecturer, and Medical Teams International - Westnile Uganda Operation. With Bachelor's degree in Science, Master's degree in Physics (Biophysics), and Master's degree in Mathematical Science (Bioinformatics), Awany's research interest centers mainly in the areas of Statistical Genetics and Bioinformatics.
BioinformaticsGenomicsMathematicsBiophysics Genetic VariationGWAS StudyHuman GeneticsStatistics and Probability
Miss Jacquiline Mugo - PhD Student
Jacquiline Mugo is a PhD student at the Computational Biology Group, University of Cape Town, under the supervision of Prof. Nicola Mulder and Dr. Emilson Chimusa, and a part of the H3BioNet simulation tools project. Her current research work is in population genetics, in particular, Genome-wide Association Studies (GWAS), where she aims to develop a joint SNPs and ancestry association method for multi-way admixed populations, and utilize ancestry information from multi-way admixed populations to estimate the disease heritability. As part of her research work, Miss. Mugo has developed a multi-scenario simulation framework for GWAS datasets (FractalSIM), that allows users to simulate both homogeneous and admixed population datasets with disease and/or selection signals, which upon publication was released to the public for use. She also co-authored "A comprehensive survey of models for dissecting local ancestry deconvolution in human genome", where they discussed close to 20 local ancestry inferencing methods, with an aim to guide and inform users of the tools. Miss. Mugo has a mathematics background, and attained her masters degree in physical sciences at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. In her project, she assessed the missing heritability in GWAS using both simulated and real datasets, and made suggestion on the dilemma that surrounded (and still lingers) GWAS.
BioinformaticsGenomicsMathematicsApplied Mathematics Genetic VariationGWAS StudyComputational BiologyStatistics and Probability Data Quality ManagementGenotype and PhenotypeGenotyping Experiment Population GeneticsQuantitative GeneticsSimulation Experiment 
Mrs Prisca Kerapetse Thami - PhD Student
Prisca K. Thami is a PhD student at Botswana Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership and the University of Cape Town. Her interests are analysis of next generation sequence data and studying genetic predisposition. In her PhD project she is surveying the human whole genome to characterize genomic variations and find out whether human genomic variations affect HIV status and progression from HIV to disease. This project uses samples from a Botswana cohort, therefore she also hopes to reveal the genetic architecture of the population of Botswana.
BioinformaticsGenomicsHuman GeneticsInfectious DiseaseMolecular Biology Personalized MedicinePharmacogenomicsPopulation Genetics Population GenomicsSequence AnalysisWhole Genome Sequencing
