Rafi Ahmad
Professor
- rafi.ahmad@inn.no
- Phone number
- +47 62 51 78 45
Faculty of Applied Ecology, Agricultural Sciences and Biotechnology
Department of Biotechnology
Campus Hamar,
Room 2N1248
Short description
About (Link to LinkedIn Profile)
Rafi is a Professor and the Group Leader of the strategic research group at INN, B3 - Bioinformatics, Biodiscovery & Biorefinery.
He has a Bachelor’s degree in pharmacy (BPharm) from Jamia Hamdard, Delhi, India, a Master of Science in Bioinformatics from the University of Exeter, UK, and a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Computational Chemistry from The Arctic University of Tromsø (UiT). After his Ph.D., he worked for three years as a post-doctoral scientist at the Norwegian Structural Biology Centre, responsible for drug discovery services.
He has six years (pre-and post-doctoral) of experience working in the life science industry, including AstraZeneca, Dassault Systemes, and Medivir. Rafi has led industrial drug discovery projects in infection and antibiotic resistance.
A new chemical entity developed under my project leadership is planned to enter clinical trials in 2023.
Research interest and current work
My research offers a unique combination of expertise in computational life sciences and bioinformatics, based on experience from the pharmaceutical industry and academia in computational methods in life science. My main research interest is in the rapid diagnostics of bacterial infection, antimicrobial resistance, and AST prediction. Rafi is the project leader of several research projects on rapid diagnosis and has received extramural research funding from several national and international funding agencies.
Rafi has recently received funding from the Research Council of Norway (RCN) for a collaborative and knowledge-building project, OH-AMR-Diag, to develop new knowledge and generate research competence needed by society or the business sector to address critical societal challenges.
Rafi is the project leader of several Research Council of Norway (RCN) projects (AMR-RADAR AMR-Diag and ABR-Diag), RCN COMMERCIALIZATION (Rapid-Mast, Rapid-Diag), and an RFFI project (Vet-AMR-Diag, Rapid-AMR). He is part of the Leader group for the recently funded RCN project Network for One Health Resistome Surveillance (NORSE), where he leads the work package "building expertise on resistome surveillance and diagnostics."
A new Diku project AMR-Educate with partners from Harvard University (USA) and India.
He was nominated in 2020 by RCN to the Management Committee of European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST - https://www.cost.eu/.).
Detailed information about - publications and projects.
Associate Editor- BMC Bioinformatic and Frontier in Microbiology (Level 2 journal in Norway)
Editorial Board - Frontier in Microbiology and Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal
NRK Dagsrevyen
https://tv.nrk.no/serie/dagsrevyen/201911/NNFA19111419/avspiller
On the front page of NRK
https://www.nrk.no/innlandet/norsk-antibiotika-forskning-kan-redde-tusenvis-av-liv-1.14779014
News in Hamar Arbeiderblad (subscription needed)
https://www.h-a.no/2021/nyheter/rafi-leder-an-i-jakten-pa-mutert-virus-pa-hedmarken/
1996 - 2000 Bachelor of Pharmacy, Jamia Hamdard, Delhi, India
2000 - 2001 Master of Science in Bioinformatics, University of Exeter, UK
2004 - 2008 Ph.D. Bioinformatics & Drug Discovery, University of Tromsø, Norway
Current
2022 - Till Date Professor, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Hamar, Norway
2024 - Till Date Professor II, The Arctic University of Tromsø (UiT), Tromsø, Norway
2021 - 2024 Senior Researcher, Oslo University Hospital (Project assignment)
Past
2018 - 2023 Associate Professor, The Arctic University of Tromsø (UiT), Tromsø, Norway
2016 - 2022 Associate Professor, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Hamar, Norway
2017 - Expert reviewer for EU H2020 grant applications
2013 - 2015 Leader New Molecule Profiling, Open Innovation, AstraZeneca, Molndal, Sweden
2011 - 2013 Senior Research Scientist, Medivir AB, Stockholm, Sweden
2012 - 2013 Project Leader, Antibiotic Resistance, Medivir AB, Stockholm, Sweden
2008 - 2011 Post Doc Drug Discovery and Design, Norwegian Structural Biology Centre, University of Tromsø, Norway
2002 - 2004 Research Scientist, Team Leader, Accerlys Inc., Banglore, India
Prof. Sumeet Mahajan (University of Southampton)
2020-2023
Abdolrahman Khezri
2018-2022
Ekaterina Avershina
2021 - 2024
Jawad Ali
2023 - 2026
Sverre Branders
2023 - 2026
Anurag Basavaraj Bellankimath
2022 - 2025
Chidimma Phoebe Echebiri
2020 - 2024
Line Strand Karlsholm (at Inst. of Clinical Medicine, UiT)
2021 - 2025
Daniel Salamonsen (at NosStruct, Inst. of Chemistry, UiT)
2022 - 2025
Kira Waagner Birkeland (at Dept. of Microbiology, Inland Norway Hospital)
PhD (Past)
2018 - 2021
Yusuf Khan (Thesis defended)
Technician
Crystal Chapagain
Master (M. Sc 1 year project) - Current
Fatemeh Asadi
Nasib Bin Mahbub
Lethokuhle Telulile Manzini
Bachelor (Short 3 months project) - Current
Mehakprit Kaur
Oula Mohamadali Badawi
Zainab Haidari
Nasteexo Nur Muse
Master (M. Sc 1 year project) - Past (2016 onwards)
Lana Kragulj, Narayan Prasad Koirala, Prabin Bhandari, Elizabeth Wirsiy, Valentina Krivenjeva, Ewelina Rojek, Mithlesh Kumar Ray, Roshan Mandal, Bijay Thapa, Sanjeev Shakya, Helene Bouras, Ambreen Kauser, Mukund Joshi, Ahmed Mostafa, Barsha Bhattarai, Bindiya Bajracharya, Crystal Chapagain, Amulya Baral
Erasmus EU/Intenationak Exchange Students (B.Sc/M.Sc/PhD up to 6 months project) - Past (2016 onwards)
B.Sc: Ewelina Rojek (Poland), Mikolaj Kozlowski (Poland), Paulina Borowiec (Poland), Claudia Lopez (Spain), Jaskeen Singh (India)
Ph.D.: Deepak Kocher and Sonu Tyagi (AIIMS, Delhi), Alex Morozov (COST - Moldova)
NRK P1 interview on Diku AMR-Educate project
Rafi in NRK news from (skip to time 1:20)
Research Topics
- Anitbiotic Resistance
- Bioinformatics
- Big Data Analysis
- Machine Learning
- Biotechnology
- Drug Discovery
- Genomics
- Next Generation Sequencing
Publications and Projects
Projects
Research groups
Addresses
Postal Address
Inland Norway University of Applied SciencesPostboks 400 Vestad
2418 Elverum
Norway