Beltrame Group at MBZUAI

About

Olá! My name is Eduardo da Veiga Beltrame, I was born and raised in Florianópolis, Brazil. I am an Assistant Professor of Computational Biology at MBZUAI in Abu Dhabi. I completed my PhD in Bioengineering at Caltech, where I focused on computational and experimental method development for single cell omics. Before joining MBZUAI I was a founding scientist at Retro Biosciences, a biotechnology startup focused on aging biology, and bioinformatics lead at ImYoo, a biotechnology startup leveraging single cell omics to advance patient-centric precision medicine.

Other links: Here is my MBZUAI faculty profile, my CV, my GitHub and LinkedIn.
My personal website is munfred.com.

Research interests

My main research interest is on developing methods and tools for working with biological data generated by single cell omics technologies, which are key to advancing precision medicine. I am particularly interested in single cell RNA sequencing data, which is now being generated much faster than researchers can analyze it. I am establishing a research group to develop new methods and tools that can streamline biological analysis and make it easy to ask biological questions about the data for researchers of all backgrounds, and to explore the development of interactive analysis tools that incorporate recent advances in machine learning, such as natural language models, which can make biological analysis easier, faster and broaden access to more researchers.

• For details on current interests, see this May 2024 research talk.
• For publications, see Google Scholar
• I am currently developing a new introductory course on single cell biology and bioinformatics, the materials are available here: github.com/munfred/scbb

Looking for a Postdoctoral Scholar!

I am currently recruiting a postdoctoral scholar to work with me at MBZUAI in Abu Dhabi on the development of computational methods and tools for processing and analyzing single cell omics data. Interest in collaboration, teaching and mentorship experience is highly valuable, as the MBZUAI computational biology department is very new, and we are in the intial steps of organizing many teaching and research initiatives in computational biology. Take a look at my May 2024 research talk, and if this interests you, do not hesitate to reach out to me at eduardo.beltrame at mbzuai.ac.ae.

Prospective Students, Visiting Students and Applying to Graduate Programs

Please note that I do not have bandwith to mentor students outside of MBZUAI. If you would like to work with me as a student, you need to have been accepted by a MBZUAI program - please do not write me a generic email asking to work with me or at MBZUAI (if you do, I will send you this link in response.

• If you are an undergraduate student and would like to spend a summer doing research at MBZUAI, visit the MBZUAI Undergraduate Research Internship Program (UGRIP) page at mbzuai.ac.ae/ugrip/.
• If you are currently a PhD student and would like to be a visiting student at the MBZUAI computational biology department (for up to 6 months), I may be able support an exchange please review my research interests and write a 2-3 page description of your projects and what you'd like to do if you came to MBZUAI (do note that I expect visiting students to already have experience with single cell omics).
• If you have completed your undergraduate studies and would like to pursue a Masters or PhD in topics relating to artificial intelligence, consider applying to the MBZUAI graduate programs. Applications opened on October 1 2024 and priority will be given to mbzuai.ac.ae/study/admission-process.
• If you are thinking about applying to grad school in general to do research on bio-things in general, some thoughts and suggestions are here

Prospective Research Assistants

Please note: I am not hiring a research assistant at this time. I am only looking for a postdoctoral scholar, which requires having a PhD in hand.

Prospective Faculty

If you are looking for permanent faculty positions, MBZUAI has an ongoing search for Open Rank Faculty in Computational Biology. Feel free to reach to me out if you have any questions.