Rafi Ahmad

Short description

About (Link to LinkedIn Profile and ORCiD)

Rafi is a Professor and the Group Leader of the strategic research group at INN, B³ - Bioinformatics, Biodiscovery & Biorefinery.

My Journey and the experiences that have shaped my research motivation. Please have a read https://www.inn.no/english/research/research-news/rafis-battle/

He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy (BPharm) from Jamia Hamdard in Delhi, India, a Master of Science in Bioinformatics from the University of Exeter in the UK, and a Ph.D. in Bioinformatics and Computational Chemistry from the Arctic University of Tromsø (UiT). After completing his Ph.D., he spent three years working as a postdoctoral scientist at the Norwegian Structural Biology Centre, where he was in charge of drug discovery tasks.

He brings six years of experience, both pre- and post-doctoral, in the life science sector, including positions at AstraZeneca, Dassault Systemes, and Medivir. Rafi has spearheaded industrial drug discovery projects focused on infection and antibiotic resistance.

Research interest and current work

My research highlights a unique combination of expertise in computational life sciences and bioinformatics, drawing on my experiences in both the pharmaceutical industry and academia regarding computational methods in life sciences. My primary research focuses on the rapid diagnosis of bacterial infections, antimicrobial resistance, and AST prediction. Rafi supervises multiple research projects focused on rapid diagnosis and has secured extramural funding from various national and international funding agencies.

Rafi recently received funding from the Research Council of Norway (RCN)  for a collaborative and knowledge-building project, OH-AMR-Diag, and a Global Health project UTI-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/.).

Brief CV

Education Profile

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

Work Experience

Current

2022 - Till Date Professor, Inland Norway University, Norway

2024 - Till Date Professor II, The Arctic University of Tromsø (UiT), Norway

2024 - Till Date Visiting Professor, University of Southampton, UK

Past

2021 - 2024 Senior Researcher, Oslo University Hospital (Project assignment)

2018 - 2023 Associate Professor, The Arctic University of Tromsø (UiT), Norway

2016 - 2022 Associate Professor, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway

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

Group Members

Professors/Assoc. Prof.

Prof. Sumeet Mahajan (University of Southampton)

Assoc. Prof. Manfred Grabherr

Assoc. Prof. Abolrahman Khezri

PostDoc/Senior Researchers

2025 - 2027

Jawad Ali

2024 - 2026

Jonathan Hira

2025 - 2026

Neeraj Mahajan (AIIMS - Delhi)

2020-2023

Abdolrahman Khezri

2018-2022

Ekaterina Avershina

PhD

2025 - 2028

Crystal Chapagain

2025 - 2028

Fatemeh Asadikhoeini

2025 - 2029

Fahmida Jahan Fahim (at Institute of Clinical Medicine, UiT)

2023 - 2026

Sverre Branders

2023 - 2026

Anurag Basavaraj Bellankimath

2022 - 2026

Chidimma Phoebe Echebiri

2021 - 2024

Jawad Ali

2022 - 2025

Kira Waagner Birkeland (at Dept. of Microbiology, Inland Norway Hospital)

2020 - 2025

Line Strand Karlsholm (at Inst. of Clinical Medicine, UiT)

2018 - 2021

Yusuf Khan

Master (M. Sc 1 year project) - Current

Emil Varman Manivannan

Tove Alstad Attestog

Mowlid

Usha Sharma (Erasmus+ Portugal)

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, Fatemeh Asadi, Lukas, Nasib Bin Mahbub

Erasmus EU/International 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.: AIIMS, Delhi - Deepak Kocher &  Sonu Tyagi (2023), Shivani Rawat & Shreshtra Singh (2024); IIT-Delhi - Nirmal Mahar (2025), Hilya (2025); Alex Morozov (COST - Moldova)

Rafi in Media

• Aftenposten - Kan spare opptil 1,6 millioner antibiotikadoser hvert år
• forskning.no · Denne norske oppfinnelsen kan brukes i kampen mot resistente bakterier i forskning.no
• Ny forskning kan redusere antibiotikaresistens i NRK TV
• OH-AMR-Diag press release
• NRK P1 interview on Diku AMR-Educate project
• Rafi in NRK news from (skip to time 1:20)
• NRK TV - https://www.nrk.no/innlandet/norsk-antibiotika-forskning-kan-redde-tusenvis-av-liv-1.14779014

Research Topics

• Antibiotic Resistance
• Infection diagnostics
• Bioinformatics
• AI and Machine Learning
• Metagenomics
• Disruptive technologies

Publications and Projects

Complete list of Projects and Publications available at the Norwegian Research Archieve