Dr. Sara Morsy

Biography

Medical doctor, experimental biologist, computational biologist, and data scientist with leadership roles in a different international network that includes ELIXIR-Europe, and DEMON (an international network for applying AI and data science to dementia). Sara's interdisciplinary research background has enabled her to work with top professors in Japan and the USA on identifying theranostics for different diseases. Her research focus is currently on translational psychiatry, where she combines her experimental, computational, and clinical experience to provide personalised diagnostic and prognostic markers for psychiatric diseases. Sara's research journey began as an academic clinician, where she conducted qualitative research studies such as interviews and focus groups. She gained experience in qualitative data analysis using different software, including NVIVO. She then joined Dr. Nguyen Tien Huy's lab at Nagasaki University, where they worked on developing evidence-based medicine practices. She conducted systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and Bayesian network meta-analyses, developed protocols for clinical trials, supervised team members, and helped them understand different statistical methodologies. Sara's career in data science started from there, where she worked in the industry and with different research groups worldwide, analysing health data, including clinical, epidemiological, and imaging data, using different statistical packages such as R and Python. During her MSc study in Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and a diploma equivalent degree in Clinical Microbiology, she learned different lab techniques, such as mitochondrial separation, ELISA, and in-vivo disease models.

She was awarded Erasmus+ research fellowship to work at Dr. Ritchie Williamson lab where Sara worked on O-GlcNAC signature in dementia. During this time, she conducted and learnt different lab techniques as protein separation, western blots, RNA extraction, cell culture, and qPCR. This study helped her design her own experiments. She also used machine learning and deep learning algorithms to combine genetic, neuroimaging, and clinical data to identify different biomarkers for human diseases. Currently, Sara is working with researchers at the Mayo Clinic and Harvard medical school to develop genetic and MRI markers for adult ADHD and autism.

Research areas:
Mainly three themes:
- Computational: Clinical digital twins, AI, computational biology
- Precision psychiatry
- Functional neurological disorders



                         

Research

My research is currently focused on:
Translational Psychiatry
Artificial intelligence application for health data
Bioinformatics
Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 
Precision medicine
Clinical Microbiology

Teaching

Sara has 5 year of teaching experience, Sara developed an accredited curriculum for researchers and clinical communities and taught the following courses:
1- Medical Biochemistry
2- Molecular Biology
3- Bioinformatics
4- Biostatistics
5- Microbiology

Sara is currently developing the curriculum and  providing the training for 
1- FAIR principles for research and training
2- Data Stewardship
3- Research data management

Her current role is as a lecturer of anatomy and Physiology where she leads the clinical sciences module on Digital Health and Enterprise and develops the curriculum needed for data analysis and bioinformatics for undergraduates

Professional activities

Publications