Welcome to the Bioinformatics Research Laboratory @ UCY

We are a small – yet interdisciplinary – group at the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Cyprus. Our research in computational biology and bioinformatics is mainly oriented towards the interpretation of large scale genomic and biological data in order to reveal the principles governing the molecular basis of life. Along these lines, we develop/utilize computational methods (empirical, statistical and machine/deep learning) that exploit any available type of biological information (e.g. macromolecular sequences and structures, gene expression data, biomedical literature) towards understanding biological systems, ranging from macromolecules and macromolecular complexes, to phenotypes.

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We are mostly interested in problems related to protein sequence-structure-function and we have are recent interest in the interface of computational genomics and synthetic (micro)biology.

In particular, we have a long-standing interest in the study of classes of non-globular proteins (e.g. transmembrane proteins, protein sequences with local compositional biases or repeats). During the last decade we have focused our research on protein components of eukaryotic endomembrane systems, in particular nuclear pore complex subunits and components of the autophagy machinery.

More specifically, we devise algorithms, methods/tools, databases and computer systems for:

1. Protein sequence analysis and structural bioinformatics, e.g. repeats, low complexity/compositional bias, intrinsic structural disorder, (trans)membrane proteins.
2. Computational comparative genomics, e.g. evolution of low complexity/compositionally biased sequences, computational approaches for synthetic biology (recently with wet-lab expansion).
3. Biomedical text mining and its applications in biocuration (with a focus in selective autophagy)

We are constantly looking for passionate new PhD students, Postdocs, and Master students to join the team (more info) !

We are supported by the University of Cyprus. External funding resources throughout the years include the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation and the [European Union] (https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/). In particular, our [LIRcentral] (https://lircentral.eu/) project is co-funded by the European Union (European Regional Development Fund, ERDF) and the Republic of Cyprus through the project EXCELLENCE/0421/0576 under the EXCELLENCE HUBS programme of the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation.