Mahin Ghorbani

Dr. Mahin Ghorbani is a biotechnologist and bioinformatician specializing in AI-supported bioinformatics, microbiome, virome, host transcriptomics, metatranscriptomics, and translational multi-omics. She conducted postdoctoral research at Karolinska Institutet from 2021 to 2025 and is currently a Research Specialist at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet.

She has international research experience in Malaysia, India, Denmark, and the Netherlands, spanning biotechnology, bioinformatics, drug discovery, molecular methods, and computational biology. Her work focuses on how microbial, viral, and host molecular signatures contribute to disease development, progression, treatment response, and patient stratification across schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, infectious diseases, HIV, COVID-19, hepatitis-related disease, rheumatoid arthritis, pancreatic cancer, oral cancer, and immunocompromised conditions.

Research

Her research integrates microbiome, virome, transcriptomic, clinical, and multi-omics datasets to identify disease-associated signatures, biomarkers, and mechanisms relevant to early detection, disease stratification, and precision medicine.

Bioinformatics, AI/ML, Omics and Experimental Technologies

She develops AI/ML-supported bioinformatics pipelines, web-based analytical tools, and Python- and R-based workflows for microbiome, virome, transcriptomic, clinical, and multi-omics data analysis. Her expertise also includes sequencing data processing, visualization, clinical metadata integration, RNA/DNA extraction, PCR, sequencing preparation, quality control, and ELISA-based assays.

Grants and Funding

She has received research funding as the main applicant for projects focused on virome/virus research, hepatitis B, and microbiome-related mechanisms in schizophrenia, with support from the Ruth and Richard Julin Foundation, KI Foundation for Virus Research, Karolinska Institutet, and the Schizophrenia International Research Society.

Teaching, Supervision, and Examination

She is Co-Director of the master’s-level Bioinformatics and NGS course at Karolinska Institutet and teaches NGS, bioinformatics, transcriptomics, genomics ethics, microbiome data analysis, clinical genomics, statistical/transcriptomic analysis in R, and practical coding for omics interpretation.

She has supervised and mentored more than 15 students and junior researchers, including PhD students, in projects related to microbiome research, AI in medicine, oral cancer, metastasis, HIV, Alzheimer’s disease, periodontitis, hepatitis, pancreatic cancer, and hepatology-related research. She has also served as a thesis assessor and external examiner for master’s-level degree projects at Karolinska Institutet and the University of Amsterdam.

Academic and Professional Contributions

Her academic contributions include organizing research seminars with invited academic and industry speakers in the Pathology Division, Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet; serving as Session Chair at the KI Collaboration in Science Conference; invited talks in the USA, UK, France, and Sweden; Guest Editor for JoVE; Committee Member of the Schizophrenia International Research Society; and peer reviewer for international journals.

Awards and Recognition

She has received awards and recognition for research on microbiome and schizophrenia, including an Early Career Award, poster award, best presentation award, and journal critique awards. Her research on brain virome alterations in schizophrenia has also received public science coverage.