Sina Majidian

I started my journey in bioinformatics in 2015 when I wanted to choose the subject of my PhD thesis which was situated in the intersection of data science and genetics. Using in-depth mathematical concepts, I developed algorithms to assemble haplotypes from high-throughput DNA sequencing data. Working as an exchange PhD student in the plant department of Wageningen University, provided me the opportunity to develop a novel method and software for reconstructing the least fragmented haplotypes of polyploid species using 10X Genomics linked-read data. I have joined Prof. Dessimoz’s lab at the University of Lausanne as a Postdoctoral Fellow to develop algorithms for orthology inference since May 2021.


Research interests

  • Comparative genomics
  • Genetic variations
  • Haplotype assembly
  • Data and Signal processing

Publications and submissions

Comparative genomics

  1. OMA orthology in 2024: improved prokaryote coverage, ancestral and extant GO enrichment, a revamped synteny viewer and more in the OMA Ecosystem. Nucleic Acids Research. 2024. paper .Web browser.

  2. Inference of phylogenetic trees directly from raw sequencing reads using Read2Tree. Nature Biotechnology, 2023. paper. Software.

  3. OMAMO: orthology-based alternative model organism selection. Bioinformatics, 2022, paper, code, web service.

    Genetic variations & Haplotype assembly

  4. When less is more: applications of minimizers in Genomics. 2023.

  5. The GIAB genomic stratifications resource for human reference genomes. bioRxiv, 2023. preprint. resource.

  6. Genomic variant benchmark: if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it. Genome Biology, 2023. paper.

  7. Matrix completion with weighted constraint for haplotype estimation. Digital Signal Processing, 2021, paper, code.

  8. PhaseME: Automatic rapid assessment of phasing quality and phasing improvement. GigaScience, 2020, paper, code

  9. Hap10: reconstructing accurate and long polyploid haplotypes using linked reads. BMC Bioinformatics, 2020, paper, code.

  10. Minimum error correction-based haplotype assembly: considerations for long read data. PLOS one, 2020, paper, code.

  11. Haplotype assembly using manifold optimization and error correction mechanism. IEEE Signal Processing Letters, 2019, paper.

  12. NGS based haplotype assembly using matrix completion. PLOS one, 2019, paper, code.

    Applied Bioinformatics

  13. Transcriptomic data reveals the dynamics of terpenoids biosynthetic pathway of fenugreek. preprint. 2023.

  14. Anti-angiogenic effects of testis-specific gene antigen 10 on primary endothelial cells. Gene, 2020, paper.

  15. Responses of cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) rhizosphere microbial community to some agronomic management practices. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 2021, paper.

  16. Overexpression of TSGA10 in HeLa cells downregulates miR-183 level; TSGA10 defeats miR-183/HIF1A network. Submitted.

  17. The critical role of RHOXF1 transcription factor in the stress response expression of TSGA10 by a transcriptional regulation network in testis and cancer tissues. Submitted.

    Signal and data processing

  18. Matrix completion using graph total variation based on directed laplacian matrix. Circuits, Systems, and Signal Processing, 2021, paper.


Conferences & invited talks

  1. Orthology inference at scale with FastOMA. ISMB/ECCB 2023.

  2. Inference of phylogenetic trees directly from raw sequencing reads using Read2Tree. Invited talk. Department of Microbiology, University of Lausanne. May 2023.

  3. BIOQA: toward a representative benchmark dataset of biological questions/answers involving orthology, gene expression, and complementary omics data. Oral presentation. ECCB-QFO. 2022.

  4. A fast pipeline for species tree inference using placement in Hierarchical Orthologous Groups, Invited Talk, Biodiversity Genomics, Aug. 2021, Sanger website, slides.

  5. Towards pathway-specific model organism with orthology relationships. Invited Talk. International Conference on Genetics and Human Genomics, Dec. 2021. slides.

  6. PhaseRE: Identifying recombination location per sample using long reads, Accepted as Poster presentation, Basel Computational Biology Conference BC2, Sep. 2021, slides.

  7. Detection of biomarker miRNAs and their functions by co-expression network analysis in gastric cancer. Poster presentation, The second international congress on biomedicine, Iran, December 2018.

  8. Haplotype assembly using rank minimization. Selected talk, The seventh conference on bioinformatics, Iran, January 2018.

  9. Haplotype assembly using matrix completion. Invited talk, International workshop in signal processing (IWSP), Iran, May 2018.

  10. Haplotype estimation for NGS data using polynomial optimization. Poster presentation, The tenth biotechnology congress, Iran, August 2017.


Education

  • (2015 – 2020) Doctor of Philosophy in Electrical Engineering, Iran University of Science & Technology, Dissertation: Haplotype assembly for next generation sequencing data using matrix completion, GPA: 3.75.

  • (2013 - 2015) Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, Iran University of Science & Technology, GPA: 3.22.

  • (2008 - 2013) Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University.


Teaching experience

  • Teaching Assistant. Biodiversity bioinformatics and comparative genomics. SIB , Sep 2023.
  • Workshop Instructor. OMA and OMArk Biodiversity Genomics Academy, Sep 2023.
  • Guest lecturer, Reviews in Quantitative Biology. 20 PhD students, University of Lausanne, Nov. 2022.
  • Teaching assistant, Bioinformatic Algorithms. University of Lausanne, Mar-Apr 2023.
  • Guest lecturer. Bioinformatics (postgraduate course), Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 2020.
  • Workshop Instructor. Introduction to DNA data analysis, Yazd university, 2021.
  • Workshop Instructor. Gene expression analysis using R, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 2019.
  • Workshop Instructor. R programming, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, 2018.
  • Lecturer. Microwave 1, wireless communication (undergrad courses), Sadra Institute, 2017.
  • Teaching Assistant. Convex optimization, stochastic process, digital signal processing (postgraduate courses). Iran University of Science & Technology, 2016.
  • Teaching Assistant. Physics 1, physics lab, circuits lab (undergrad courses), Shahid Beheshti university, 2013.

Awards, honours and funds

  • Proposal submission for The Marie-Sklodowska Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship Individual fellowships- MSCA IF, scored 79.8%.
  • Review Editor of Frontiers in Systems Biology journal, and peer review service for journals (Genome, Computers in biology and medicine, IET systems biology, Plos ONE)
  • Co-supervising master project, Identify high resolution CNV from Spatial transcriptomics data. University of Lausanne, 2023.
  • Co-supervising first step master project, Detecting whole genome duplication using hierarchical orthologous groups. University of Lausanne, 2021.
  • Co-supervising summer intern, Orthology guided model organism selection. University of Lausanne, 2021.
  • Co-supervising Master thesis, Creating an Ensemble Method Combining Haplotype Estimates. Wageningen University, The Netherlands. 2019.
  • Mentoring several undergraduate and graduate students for defining and conducting their projects.
  • Ranked in the top 2% among 20,000+ electrical engineering applicants in nation-wide M.Sc. University entrance exam.
  • Ranked in the top 0.5% among 350,000+ participants in Iranian national university entrance exam for mathematics and Physics.

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