Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Topic: AI in Omics Era

Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Department of Bioinformatics and System Biology

Ahmad Vaez was born on 11 May 1973 in Isfahan, a beautiful historic city in the center of Iran. After graduating with a medical degree (MD) from the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 1999, he worked as a medical doctor, then as a lecturer, then as a researcher, then as a research officer, and then as a chief research officer. He also served as an officer of the regional bioethics research committee, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Iran. In September 2010, he started his PhD research program at the Unit of Genetic Epidemiology and Bioinformatics, Department of Epidemiology, University of Groningen, the Netherlands, under the supervision of Prof. Harold Snieder. Ahmad has been interested in using bioinformatics-based approaches to unravel the multifaceted genomic mechanisms controlling complex traits or diseases. During his PhD trajectory, he tried to provide a comprehensive walk-through of the classic steps of genomic association mapping using bioinformatics tools and approaches. Also, in parallel to the successful completion of his PhD trajectory, he has been leading one of the largest international consortia of meta-analysis of Genome-Wide Association studies (GWAS), including more than 200,000 samples from more than 70 centers, designed to explore genomic determinants of C-reactive protein (CRP). This mega-scale project has successfully identified a large number of novel genomic markers underlying serum levels of CRP