Rafi Ahmad

Short description

About

Rafi is the Group Leader of the strategic research group at INN - Bioinformatics and Biodiscovery. He was part of the research group, which won the INN Research Prize in 2018. Link to LinkedIn Profile

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-Diag and  ABR-Diag), RCN COMMERCIALIZATION (Rapid-Diag) and an RFFI project (Rapid-AMR) on novel diagnostics for antibiotic resistance and is the WP leader for several RCN, Diku, RFFI, INN, SIHF and Helse Sør Øst funded projects. He is part of the Leader group for the recently funded RCN project Network for One Health Resistome Surveillance (NORSE). He is the leader of 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/.).

He is affiliated to  Nor-OpenScreen (the Norwegian node of the EU-Openscreen infrastructure project) via an MoU with Prof. Kjetil Tasken, Biotechnology Centre, University of Oslo/Oslo University Hospital (OUS).

Detailed information about - publications and projects.

Associate Editor- BMC Bioinformatic (Level 2 journal in Norway)

Editorial Board - MDPI Biology, and Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal

The AMR-Diag project and Rafi have received good media attention. Please read here more about it

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/ 

https://www.h-a.no/2020/nyheter/vil-redusere-overforbruk-av-antibiotika-og-gi-legene-raskere-provesvar/

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

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

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

2016 - Till Date 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

Group Members

Professor II

Prof. Sumeet Mahajan (University of Southampton)

PostDoc

2020-2023

Abdolrahman

2018-2022

Ekaterina Avershina

PhD (Current)

2021 - 2024

Jawad Ali

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)

Researcher

Asal Ahmadi

PhD (Past)

2018 - 2021

Yusuf Khan (Thesis defended)

Master (M. Sc 1 year project) - Current

Bindiya Bajracharya

Crystal Chapagain

Amulya Baral

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

Erasmus EU Exchange Students (B.Sc 3-6 months project) - Past (2016 onwards)

Ewelina Rojek (Poland), Mikolaj Kozlowski (Poland), Paulina Borowiec (Poland), Claudia Lopez (Spain)

Rafi in Media

OH-AMR-Diag press release

NRK P1 interview on Diku AMR-Educate project

AMR-Diag project mentioned as a is a defining characteristic of INN University.

Rafi in NRK news from (skip to time 1:20)

Research Topics

• Anitbiotic Resistance
• Bioinformatics
• Big Data Analysis
• Biotechnology
• Drug Discovery
• Genomics
• Next Generation Sequencing

Publications and Projects

Se publikasjoner og prosjekter i Cristin