- Role: Senior Lecturer
Contact Details
- Telephone: +27 21 959 3645
- Facsimile: +27 21 959 2512
- Email: nicki at sanbi ac za
Research Areas
- generic approaches to disease gene prediction and
- genetics of host response to pathogen infection
Overview
My formal postgraduate education was in laboratory science in the field of medical genetics, particularly in genetics underlying disease. My undergraduate degree was in Biochemistry and my Honours degree was in the field of Medical Biochemistry at the University of Cape Town. I did my PhD in Paediatric Molecular Oncology at the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital in London, UK, with the University of London. I completed a postdoctoral position in the USA at the University of California, San Francisco, specialising in genetics in the field of Paediatric Endocrinology.
In 2003 I returned to Cape Town and made the transition to bioinformatics with a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellowship at the South African National Bioinformatics Institute (SANBI), UWC, where I developed generic approaches to computational disease gene prediction.
I subsequently took a postdoctoral position in the department of Human Genetics at the University of Cape Town until the end of 2008, where I pursued methods to identify and prioritise good candidate aetiological genes for specific diseases. During 2009/2010 I continued in computational analysis of disease genetics as an independent consultant researcher.
I have also developed an interest in the genetics of the host response to infectious agents, working with the international SysCo consortium studying host response of macrophages to leishmania infection with genome-wide systems biology approaches that integrate protein, mRNA, miRNA and regulatory network data.
In July 2010 I rejoined SANBI, UWC, as a Senior Lecturer, where I will be developing my own research group and contributing to existing studies ongoing at SANBI. My interests remain in the areas of generic approaches to disease gene prediction and genetics of host response to pathogen infection. I have a keen interest in the area of translational research, aiming to bring together computational approaches, molecular biology and clinical approaches to enhance our understanding of and ability to modify the disease state
