RESEARCH
Her current research aims to better understand the regulatory mechanisms associated with multiple myeloma progression through the integration of multi-omics data. By leveraging single-cell sequencing technologies, she investigates the cellular composition of the bone marrow and explores cell-to-cell interactions that shape the tumor microenvironment. Through collaboration with in-Kingdom hospital, KFSH&RC, she is also involved in generating single-cell transcriptomics sequencing data from multiple myeloma patients in Saudi Arabia, contributing to a more localized understanding of the disease and supporting future precision medicine efforts.

BIOGRAPHY
Azari Bantan holds a BSc with honors in Medical Genetics from the Medical School at Swansea University, UK (2020), where she gained early research experience through a summer internship within the Department of Immunology. Her undergraduate work focused on investigating how host-dependent microenvironments shape innate metabolic immune responses under elevated fructose conditions, with implications for cancer and infectious disease. Driven by a growing interest in computational biology, Azari pursued an M.S. in Bioscience at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), where she joined the Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC). Under the supervision of Prof. Takashi Gojobori, her master’s research centered on the evolutionary dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 in immunocompromised patients. Azari is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Bioengineering program at KAUST, specializing in Machine Learning and Bioinformatics under the supervision of Prof. David Gómez-Cabrero. Her research focuses on unraveling the molecular complexity of multiple myeloma, a hematological malignancy, through the integration of multi-omics data. By leveraging cutting-edge sequencing technology, particularly single-cell sequencing technologies, she aims to dissect cellular heterogeneity and identify key regulatory mechanisms driving disease progression.