Dr. Tobias K. Karakach obtained a Msc. degree in Analytical Chemistry with a concentration in Chemometrics from Dalhousie University in Halifax, NS, in 2002 and a PhD from the same institution under the guidance of Prof. Peter Wentzell in 2007. His PhD research focused on the analysis of large scale (multivariate) data derived from the (then emergent) field of gene expression microarrays. During his PhD, Tobias developed computational methods to analyze these data starting from the quantification of their signals from raw images (image processing), pre-processing the data and, ultimately, analysing them using various statistical approaches. The focus of his thesis was in modeling microarray data designed to answer ordinal biological observations. In 2007, Tobias moved to the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) to start an NSERC post-doctoral fellowship under the supervision of Dr. John Walter. At this time, he shifted his research to the design and analysis of NMR- and MS-based untargeted metabolomics and proteomics data. Tobias proceeded to conduct independent research as a Research Officer (RO), focusing on analysing data derived from bioanalytical technologies such as Magnetic Resonance, Mass spectrometry, hyperspectral imaging, fluorescence, Infrared and other vibrational spectroscopic tools. In 2017, Tobias moved to the Vlaams Institute voor Biotechnologie (VIB) in Leuven, Belgium and took up a position as a Bioinformatics Staff Scientist at the laboratory for Angiogenesis and Vascular metabolism. During this time, he expanded his repertoire of bioinformatics skills to  single cell transcriptomics (scRNAseq), genomics (DNAseq, aCGH, WGS, WES) and epigenomics (ChIPseq, DNA methylation) data analysis and, added invaluable biological knowledge to his computational expertise. Tobias has collaborated extensively both nationally (Canada) and internationally (US, China, Africa and Europe) and continues to seek new challenges in the general area of bioinformatics for functional genomics. He is now the head of the Bioinformatics Core Laboratory at the Children’s Hospital Research Institute of Manitoba (CHRIM) and a member of the faculty at the Department of Pediatrics and Child Heath in the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Manitoba.
Address: Hertogstraat