Dr. Tobias Karakach

Pharmacogenomicist

Dr. Tobias Karakach obtained a MSc. degree in Analytical Chemistry with a concentration in Chemometrics from Dalhousie University in 2002 and a Ph.D., also from Dalhousie Chemistry, with a concentration on Bioinformatics for Functional Genomics in 2007. He then moved to the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) to start an NSERC post-doctoral visiting fellowship under the supervision of Dr. John Walter. After his post-doc work, Tobias proceeded to conduct independent research as a Research Officer (RO), focusing on developing methods to analyze data derived from bioanalytical technologies such as Magnetic Resonance, Mass spectrometry, hyperspectral imaging, fluorescence, Infrared, and other vibrational spectroscopic tools applied to questions ranging from aquaculture to metrology.

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.

He is now Assistant Professor and PI of the Integrative Multi-Omics Research Program in the Department of Pharmacology at Dalhousie University. His lab focuses on the broader theme of pharmacogenomics addressing questions related to cancer biology, specifically understanding the etiology of pediatric malignancies, their diagnosis and progression and, their heterogeneous response to pharmacotherapeutics.

Tobias collaborates extensively both nationally (Canada) and internationally (US, China, Africa, and Europe) and continues to seek exciting collaborations with experimentalists within the realms of Molecular Biology. He is also cross-appointed in the Department of Biochemistry and Medical Genetics at the University of Manitoba.