Simon Babayan

🎓Big congratulations to Matt Arnold (@Matt_Arnold_Bio) for passing his Viva yesterday! 🎉 📑 Thesis: “Assessing and predicting viral diversity and cross-species transmission at the global and metapopulation scales" 🐳🐋🐬🦠 @SimonAB @DanielStreicker @NardusMollentze

Big news: We just released PLM-interact, a tool for predicting protein-protein interactions, showing a 16-28% improvement over previous methods and even predicting mutation effects on interactions. Here’s the story behind this journey. 🧵👇

🚨Our paper is out! Discovery of Knock-Down Resistance in the Major African #Malaria Vector Anopheles funestus @odero_joe & team found unexpected mutation in #mosquitoes confering DDT resistance @UofGSBOHVM @VectorsGlasgow @LSTMnews @malariagenomics onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/me…

📢Recruitment Research Assistant, closes 16 Sep lnkd.in/eYacNyvB Research Associate, closes 19 Sep lnkd.in/eKZrRU9q Working with Sofie Spatharis @martllewellyn @SimonAB to develop diagnostic & prediction tools to tackle challenges to aquaculture from the plankton

We are making great progress in enhancing malaria screening tests for large population surveys ~ Malaria screening in large populations requires a method that is both low-cost and highly sensitive so that we can pick up even those infections with very very low parasite densities. This is particularly helpful for elimination of the disease. In this new study led by my colleague, Issa Mshani (@IssaMshani1), we show that using mid-infrared spectroscopy with AI can quickly and accurately detect malaria, even at very low levels and in people with anemia. This method simply involves scanning dried blood spots with a desktop mid-infrared scanner and analysing the spectra using pre-trained AI classifiers, making it readily adaptable to field conditions in low-resource settings. It is a simple, cost-effective approach that could significantly improve malaria detection and help in the fight to eliminate the disease, especially in low-resource areas ~ Mshani et al 2024. Screening of malaria infections in human blood samples with varying parasite densities and anaemic conditions using AI-Powered mid-infrared spectroscopy link.springer.com/article/10.118… @ifakarahealth, @UofGlasgow, @VectorsGlasgow,@IssaMshani1 @Baldini_Fra @SimonAB @magonji @manuepeter, @DoreenSiria @SophiaMwinyi

JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREE

Fantastic opportunity for early career academics to join us! @UofGSBOHVM @UofGlasgow

Now with link: I will have two postdoc positions and a technical post in my new(ish) lab in UCL. One biased to wet experiments with chemoattractant gradients, and one more based on modelling and maths. But both posts encompassing both. Drop me a line! ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/se…

Reagent-free detection of Plasmodium falciparum malaria infections in field-collected mosquitoes ~ Here, we demonstrate the first field-application of mid-infrared spectroscopy and machine learning to swiftly and accurately detect P. falciparum sporozoites in wild-caught Anopheles funestus, a major Afro-tropical malaria vector, without requiring any laboratory reagents. The technique is fast, scanning 60–100 mosquitoes per hour, and cost-efficient, requiring no biochemical reactions and therefore no reagents. Given its previously proven capability in monitoring key entomological indicators like mosquito age, human blood index, and identities of vector species, we conclude that MIRS-ML could constitute a low-cost multi-functional toolkit for monitoring malaria risk and evaluating interventions. Work led by @manuepeter_ Mwanga et al 2024 nature.com/articles/s4159… @ifakarahealth @UofGSBOHVM @Baldini_Fra @SimonAB @IssaMshani1

We are hiring a lab technician! Join @Baldini_Fra and me if you want to learn how to maintain mosquitoes colonies and do cool infrared spectroscopy experiments. The position is for 3 months, ideally for students finishing their undergrad or master my.corehr.com/pls/uogrecruit…

Intrigued by ecoimmunology and have microbiome experience? We have a postdoc position open for our project working on wild house mice - join us to disentangle the contribution of diet, the gut microbiota and the immune system in shaping parasite responses! elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candidat…

What an amazing week of great science and great people Big 🙏 to @Manhica_CISM & @mopiyo2 for hosting the #infraredAI team in Mozambique @ifakarahealth @IrssF @NIRSID1 @UofG_SBOHVM @UofGChem @VectorsGlasgow

The estimation of the mosquito human blood index (HBI) using #InfraredSpectroscopy and #MachineLearning aligns well with the PCR-based standard HBI. Check out our new paper @MalariaJournal @ifakarahealth @VectorsGlasgow @UofG_SBOHVM malariajournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

The first #Immunology News edition of 2024 is out! 🌠 Hear from our members working on a range of areas including the fascinating emerging field of #ecoimmunology & explore recent BSI news, activities & highlights 📰 Read it here 👉bit.ly/4ahEDSd

Meet the team #4: Tom Morrison's "CONSERVATION IN PRACTICE" 🌍. You'll engage with real-world challenges in biodiversity conservation: management, protected area design, policy, human-wildlife conflict, all viewed through scientific, ethical, socio-economic, and political lenses.

New paper by @manuepeter_ Rapid classification of epidemiologically relevant age categories of #malaria vector Anopheles funestus 👉doi.org/10.1186/s13071… @ifakarahealth @UofG_SBOHVM @UofGChem @VectorsGlasgow @Fredros_Inc @SimonAB @Baldini_Fra @magonji @klaaswynne & others

Meet the teaching team #1: @SimonAB 📊 Leading "Fundamentals of Programming and Data Generating Processes," @SimonAB equips students with critical programming skills for data analysis, emphasizing GLMs, machine learning, and spatial modelling.

Interested in the #microscopic world and #genomics?This #PhD project will work with @SimonAB and @cl_faust to use #AI to unlock the hidden world of microbes in nature! This project will reveal how viruses interact with #rodents 🐭& bacteria🦠using unbiased #metagenomics

Interested in a #PhD at the intersection of #ecology and #datascience? Lots of diverse rotation projects offer a glimpse at what your research will look like through @UofGlasgow's Leverhulme Programme for Doctoral Training in Ecological Data Science - a 🧵