Alaa Afify
M.Sc. in Genetics of Human Disease at Imperial College London (MYF)/ 2017– 2018
- Alaa was awarded the Al Alfi Foundation Scholarship in 2017/2018 to pursue her Master’s degree in the genetics of human disease at University College London (UCL). After she successfully completed her degree, she acquired a wide range of bioinformatics skills, including the use and interpretation of human genomic datasets. These skills were fully applied to her thesis project, which investigated the use of whole-genome sequencing data to identify rare recessive loss-of-function mutations in breast cancer patients.
- This academic experience has equipped her with the knowledge and skills needed to start her Ph.D. project and provided her with the opportunity to apply translational bioinformatics techniques at AHC. In her current Ph.D. project, also funded by Al Alfi Foundation at ICL, she focuses on studying genetic risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease in a defined Egyptian population in the frame of an ongoing population study entitled Ballana Heart Study. The developed techniques and applications will improve diagnosis, disease monitoring, and hopefully treatment of cardiovascular disease in Egypt.