Malika Aid

Dr. Malika Aid did her undergraduate studies in computer science engineering at the university of Tizi-ouzou; Algeria. For her engineering thesis she developed a machine learning based model to predict meteorological changes using cloud distribution and density and by analyzing satellite images. She moved to Canada in 2004.After a minor in biochemistry and molecular biology, she joined Dr Sylvie Mader’s team at the institute for research in immunology and cancer (IRIC) in Montreal for her master’s and Ph.D. in Computational and Systems Biology.

 

During her Ph.D, she worked on the characterization of the transcriptional regulation mechanisms of estrogen receptor ERalpha and she developed a computational tool to predict transcription factors DNA binding sites using ChIP-Seq and ChIP-chip data sets. This software was then used to identify new transcriptional partners of estrogen receptor alpha and their downstream target genes. After her Ph.D., she joined Dr Sekaly’s group at VGTI Florida for her post-doc. During her post-doc at Sekaly’s group, her work was focused on the development and implementation of system biology approaches to identify gene expression signatures that predict protection and acquisition from HIV and SIV infections.

 

In 2016, she joined Dr. Dan Barouch laboratory at the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at the Harvard Medical School; Her ongoing research focuses on developing and implementing cutting-edge computational approaches to answer key questions in basic immunology, disease pathogenesis, and vaccine development; analyze and integrate multi-omics data sets that include transcriptomics, epigenomics, proteomics, metabolomics and Seromics generated using high-throughput assays such as bulk RNA-Seq, single cell RNA-Seq, NGS, mesoscale, systems serology, and high-dimensional flow cytometry. One of her research interests is to elucidate mechanisms that regulate the establishment/maintenance of HIV latency and persistence.