Projects

Together with the scientists at Agenus, a US-based biotech company specializing in innovative forms of cancer treatment, including the discovery and development of immuno-oncology therapies, ABI has formed a team of students and researchers to study cancer metastases and identify potential biomarkers and targets for cancer immunotherapies. This collaboration is also part of our long-term vision of supporting biotech developments in Armenia. The team discovers transcriptomics heterogeneity of Liver ...

We investigate telomeric fragments in cell-free DNA in blood plasma in disease. We aim to develop novel diagnostic approaches to identify and monitor disease status in cancers and chronic disorders through liquid biopsies.

We develop bioinformatics algorithms and tools to explore the temporal dynamics of microbiome communities in response to environmental perturbations and treatments. We seek to understand the mechanisms through which the direct effects of perturbations propagate via microbial interaction networks, leading to changes in microbiome composition over time.Through application of these techniques we study antibiotic resistance in complex microbial communities, the impact of pesticides on bee gut microbiome ...

The aim of this project is to establish a bank of induced pluripotent stem cells from patients with Familial Mediterranean Fever (FMF) using cell reprogramming approaches for a more comprehensive study of disease molecular mechanisms. In Armenia, FMF prevalence is about 14-100 per 10,000 inhabitants, depending on the region. For the comprehensive research of the disease, it is necessary to have appropriate cell platforms that will contain pathogenic mutations of the FMF. Created stem cell bank ...

The overarching objective of this project is to utilize nanopore sequencing technology and to develop machine learning–based pipelines for the integrative analysis of heterogeneous biological "big data," including multi-omic and phenotypic datasets. The goal is to investigate the molecular mechanisms underlying selected cancers and to identify novel omics-based markers for cancer classification, diagnostics, and prognostics.

Long-term environmental exposure to metals leads to epigenetic changes and may increase risks to human health. The human epidemiologic and the toxicologic animal model studies provide strong evidence of metal exposure related DNA methylation changes, and, consequently alterations in gene expression, in metabolic, genetic and signal transduction pathways and their functions. The current study is designed to investigate genome wide DNA methylation and transcriptomic changes induced by human chronic ...

This project focuses on studies around brain disorders and ageing.