Building pan-African Bioinformatics Capacity
Computational Biology/CIDRI-Africa/CIDER - UCT, School of Public Health and Family Medicine
Member Node
Computational Biology/CIDRI-Africa/CIDER - UCT, School of Public Health and Family Medicine
Member Node
Assoc. Prof. Nicki Tiffin : Node PI
Nicki started her research career in molecular genetics the University of Cape Town, followed by a Ph D in Molecular Oncology at the University of London and a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular endocrinology research at UCSF. She conducted laboratory-based research into molecular genetics underpinning paediatric cancers of muscle (Rhabdomyosarcoma) and kidney (Wilm's Tumour). She then transitioned into the field of medical genomics and bioinformatics, and until 2015 ran a research group at the South African National Bioinformatics Institute at the University of the Western Cape, which focused on computational approaches to disease gene identification, and the genetic basis of disease in African populations. During this time her research group developed computational approaches to prioritising good candidate aetiological genes from the output of genome-wide analyses; as well as undertaking exome sequencing projects to identify rare aetiological variants in families with inherited diseases. During this time Nicki also addressed ethical issues relating to genome studies undertaken in African populations. She has completed a Masters in Public Health, specialising in epidemiology, and joined CIDER at the School of Public Health and Family Medicine working on secondment to the Western Cape Government Health Department with Andrew Boulle's group to assist with developing the Provincial Health Data Centre. This has involved developing infrastructure, processes and governance structures for integrating clinical informatics and medical records into a health information exchange. In 2018, Nicki returned to full-time research on the Data Integration Platform of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Africa (CIDRI-Africa) and to start a new research group within the Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences at the University of Cape Town.
BioinformaticsGenomicsHuman GeneticsInfectious DiseaseMolecular Biology Personalized MedicineData GovernanceComputational BiologyData Mining Exome SequencingMedical InformaticsPublic Health and EpidemiologyRare Disease Simulation Experiment 
Miss. Tsaone Tamuhla - PhD Student
Tsaone Tamuhla is a PhD candidate (Bioinformatics) at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and her project is a multi-disciplinary study that will harness tools from bioinformatics, biostatistics and epidemiology. She has a strong background in molecular biology with an MSc (cum laude) from Stellenbosch University and a BSc Honours from UCT. In addition, she has worked extensively with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and is fully trained and competent in molecular TB diagnostics, culture and microscopy.
Biomedical ScienceExperimental Design and StudiesFunctional Genomics Genotype and PhenotypeInfectious DiseaseMedical BiotechnologyMicrobiology Molecular Biology 
Taryn Allie - Data Manager
Taryn Allie started her career as Data Manager at Desmond Tutu TB Centre where she managed all data aspects from 20 different clinical research projects. During this time her key focus was around good clinical data management practices, and standardizing procedures and working instructions for data entry personnel. Taryn was also previously a Data Manager in CIDRI-Africa where she was involved in the development of Tuberculosis DataBase Template (TBDBT), a REDCap project which includes core modules for informed consent data, participant demographics, clinical symptoms and presentation, diagnostic imaging and laboratory tests. Taryn has joined the UCT IBMS: Division of Computational Biology as part of the Data governance and standards team. She specializes in REDCap development dedicated to designing helpful tools that ensure proper collection of key information.
Data GovernanceData Identity and MappingData Quality Management Data Submission, Annotation and CurationDatabase Management 
