Irina Mohorianu, PhD

C2D3 Senior Teaching Associate in Data Science and Machine Learning

Job Role

Irina works to support the development and delivery of the Data Science and Machine Learning curriculum.

Email

iim22@cam.ac.uk

Cambridge Stem Cell Institute

At the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, Irina is Head of Bioinformatics & Scientific Computing; she leads a team of Bioinformaticians who develop new Machine Learning & AI methods and also support the CSCI PIs with data analyses. Through her collaborations (both within the University of Cambridge and the community) she aims to understand the intricacies of the underlying GRNs, across time or spatial series and across modalities through analyses of bulk and single cell multi-omics datasets. Integrative analyses are also combined with imaging approaches intertwined with other high throughput measurements. The training of future bioinformaticians, with various backgrounds, is also an important pillar of her group; she is lecturer/ tutor on various modules, with a significant Machine Learning/ Data Science/ Information Theory component.

Biography

Irina’s background in Computer Science was streamlined after she finished her BSc (hons), towards Applied Data Science (Machine Learning and Bioinformatics). During her PhD she studied small non-coding RNAs (sRNAs), first in plants and then in animal systems, too. Soon after completing the first year of post-doc, she was awarded a BBSRC grant on which she was Researcher Co-I. While working on this project she started to integrate mRNA /sRNA expression and became interested in Gene Regulatory Networks (GRNs). She also continued working on developing new methods for the UEA sRNA Workbench. After her post-doc, she was briefly Bioinformatics Lead at the Oxford Vaccine Group (Department of Paediatrics, School of Medical Sciences, Oxford University) and Lecturer in Computer Science at University College, Oxford, teaching Imperative Programming, Algorithms and Machine Learning.

Research

Irina’s research interests span the computational challenges of bioinformatics (high throughput sequencing across various modalities, co-sequencing, imaging linked to spatial transcriptomics and the processing of large medical measurements). A decade ago, the main question was “what is differentially expressed”; current challenges focus on “why is a gene differentially expressed”. The functional characterisation of a gene (or multiple genes, part of a pathway) poses additional computational difficulties due to noise in quantification, biases, and often incomplete set of measurements. While building optimised tools to ensure robust and reproducible analyses, her goal is to discern the relevant patterns that could bring quantitative medicine closer to the goal of personalised medicine.

Publications

Key publications:

bulkAnalyseR: an accessible, interactive pipeline for analysing and sharing bulk multi-modal sequencing data I Moutsopoulos, EC Williams, II Mohorianu Briefings in Bioinformatics 24 (1), bbac591		2023
Myeloid cell interferon secretion restricts Zika flavivirus infection of developing and malignant human neural progenitor cells H Bulstrode, GC Girdler, T Gracia, A Aivazidis, I Moutsopoulos, ... Neuron 110 (23), 3936-3951. e10		2022
The Sum of Two Halves May Be Different from the Whole—Effects of Splitting Sequencing Samples Across Lanes EC Williams, R Chazarra-Gil, A Shahsavari, I Mohorianu Genes 13 (12), 2265		2022
Viral transduction of primary human lymphoma B cells reveals mechanisms of NOTCH-mediated immune escape M Mangolini, A Maiques-Diaz, S Charalampopoulou, ... Nature Communications 13 (1), 6220		2022
HEPATOBLASTS COMMITMENT THROUGHOUT HUMAN EMBRYONIC LIVER DEVELOPMENT C Morell, ED Zacharis, C Gribben, A Shahsavari, X He, K Kania, ... HEPATOLOGY 76, S1257-S1257		2022
Host Respiratory Transcriptome Signature Associated with Poor Outcome in Children with Influenza–Staphylococcus aureus Pneumonia C Britto, I Mohorianu, T Yeung, E Cheung, T Novak, MW Hall, PM Mourani, ... The Journal of infectious diseases 226 (7), 1286-1294		2022
Chronic injury induces plasticity between cholangiocytes and hepatocytes in the human liver V Galanakis, C Gribben, A Calderwood, I Moutsopoulos, K Kania, ... Journal of Hepatology 77, S742		2022
Mapping the biogenesis of forward programmed megakaryocytes from induced pluripotent stem cells M Lawrence, A Shahsavari, S Bornelöv, T Moreau, R McDonald, ... Science Advances 8 (7), eabj8618		2022
ClustAssess: tools for assessing the robustness of single-cell clustering A Shahsavari, A Munteanu, I Mohorianu bioRxiv, 2022.01. 31.478592		2022
RBPMS promotes contractile smooth muscle splicing and alters phenotypic behaviour of human embryonic stem cell derived vascular smooth muscle cells. AGG Jacob, I Moutsopoulos, A Petchey, I Mohorianu, S Sinha, C Smith bioRxiv, 2022.11. 27.516868		2022
bulkAnalyseR: An accessible, interactive pipeline for analysing and sharing bulk sequencing results I Moutsopoulos, EC Williams, II Mohorianu bioRxiv, 2021.12. 23.473982		2021
THE USE OF THE TRANSCRIPTOMIC SIGNATURE OF MESENCHYMAL STROMAL CELLS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES TO HELP DECIDE THE OPTIMAL SOURCE FOR CARTILAGE REGENERATION I Darlington, A Vogt, EC Williams, R Brooks, M Birch, I Mohorianu, W Khan, ... Orthopaedic Proceedings 103 (SUPP_16), 14-14		2021
noisyR: enhancing biological signal in sequencing datasets by characterizing random technical noise I Moutsopoulos, L Maischak, E Lauzikaite, SA Vasquez Urbina, ... Nucleic Acids Research 49 (14), e83-e83		2021
ZAP-70 constitutively regulates gene expression and protein synthesis in chronic lymphocytic leukemia J Chen, V Sathiaseelan, A Moore, S Tan, CSR Chilamakuri, ... blood 137 (26), 3629-3640		2021
NOTCH1 drives immune-escape mechanisms in B cell malignancies M Mangolini, A Maiques-Diaz, S Charalampopoulou, ... bioRxiv, 2021.04. 10.439192		2021
Integrative single-cell RNA-seq and ATAC-seq analysis of human developmental hematopoiesis AM Ranzoni, A Tangherloni, I Berest, SG Riva, B Myers, PM Strzelecka, ... Cell stem cell 28 (3), 472-487. e7		2021
Defining the transcriptional signature of esophageal-to-skin lineage conversion MT Bejar, P Jimenez-Gomez, I Moutsopoulos, B Colom, S Han, ... bioRxiv, 2021.02. 19.431899		2021
Gene expression during larval caste determination and differentiation in intermediately eusocial bumblebees, and a comparative analysis with advanced eusocial honeybees DH Collins, A Wirén, M Labédan, M Smith, DC Prince, I Mohorianu, ... Molecular Ecology 30 (3), 718-735		2021
*noisyR:* Enhancing biological signal in sequencing datasets by characterising random technical noise I Moutsopoulos, L Maischak, E Lauzikaite, SAV Urbina, EC Williams, ... bioRxiv, 2021.01. 17.427026		2021
feamiR: Feature selection based on Genetic Algorithms for predicting miRNA-mRNA interactions EC Williams, A Calinescu, I Mohorianu bioRxiv, 2020.12. 23.424130		2020