Mohammed El-Kebir of CWI’s Life Sciences group has been awarded the BioSB Young Investigator Award for best PhD thesis in the field of bioinformatics and systems biology in the Netherlands.
El-Kebir performed his research at CWI from 2010 to 2014 under supervision of prof. dr. Gunnar Klau on the topic of combinatorial problems in computational biology. Among others, he developed new algorithms to speed up computer simulations that predict the effect of drugs on the human body, allowing pharmaceutical researchers to develop new drugs more quickly. He is currently researcher at Brown University.
The jury stated that “Mohammed El-Kebir enjoys collaborating in complex projects, especially when they are not clear cut from the beginning and require an interdisciplinary team effort. Using the analytical skills he obtained during his studies, he aims at decomposing complex problems into manageable components without losing their essential characteristics.”
The BioSB Young Investigator Award is awarded by the Netherlands Bioinformatics and Systems Biology (BioSB) research school, and will be presented at the BioSB 2015 Conference in Lunteren on 20 May.
