Faramarz Valafar
Principal Investigator
Faramarz Valafar is the Founding Director of the Biomedical Informatics Research Center (BMIRC) and the Principal Investigator of the Laboratory for Pathogenesis of Clinical Drug Resistance and Persistence (LPCDRP). He is a Professor of the UCSD/SDSU joint doctoral programs in Global Health, Epidemiology, and Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is also a professor in the School of Public Health and Big Data Analytics (BDA) graduate program. Dr. Valafar has served as the Director of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics in several biotechnology companies, and is currently a board member and the CEO of InBiome Inc. — a startup company he established in 2020. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University focusing on design of novel artificial intelligent (AI) systems for applications in medicine and biology. Prior to his current academic roles in San Diego, Dr. Valafar was a Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems at Boston University.
Dr. Valafar’s research at LPCDRP focuses on genomics, epigenetics, evolution, artificial intelligent (AI) applications, and the systems biology of human infectious diseases (IDs), in particular, tuberculosis (TB)—the ID with highest human mortality. Research in these domains is aimed at the discovery of novel drug and vaccine targets in infectious pathogens. Dr. Valafar holds two U.S. patents on methods for automated discovery of evolutionarily-resistant genomic and epigenetic targets, and the identification and use of specific such targets in TB for drug and vaccine development.
Dr. Valafar’s research at LPCDRP focuses on genomics, epigenetics, evolution, artificial intelligent (AI) applications, and the systems biology of human infectious diseases (IDs), in particular, tuberculosis (TB)—the ID with highest human mortality. Research in these domains is aimed at the discovery of novel drug and vaccine targets in infectious pathogens. Dr. Valafar holds two U.S. patents on methods for automated discovery of evolutionarily-resistant genomic and epigenetic targets, and the identification and use of specific such targets in TB for drug and vaccine development.