Chiamaka Okeke

Designed and delivered training curriculum (Research Ethics, Basic Statistics, and Introduction to R) for biologists with no prior coding experience. Taught 10 participants per cohort and improved algorithm comprehension by over 80%, enabling attendees to progress to writing R scripts for data manipulation and visualisation.

Led first Wilms tumour genomic characterisation in South African children, identifying population-specific drivers

Customised Nextflow pipelines for WES/RNA-seq analysis on HPC

Supported bioinformatics training and African research partnerships

Supervised interns: co-designed projects, led code reviews, taught reproducible pipelines

Used structural bioinformatics to assess how genetic variations influence cancer drug metabolism and toxicity in African populations. Built Python/R workflows for protein structure, mutation, and drug interaction analyses on HPC, mentored researchers, and contributed to an H3ABioNet ebook chapter and an associated manuscript.

Delivered weekly three-hour microbiology practical sessions and guided students through lab procedures with safety and compliance emphasis. Graded laboratory reports and assignments, maintained accurate grading/attendance records, and provided constructive feedback to support student improvement.

Designed and validated precision medicine-related databases and bioinformatics pipelines, supporting multi-institutional analytical workflow optimization and data integration. Co-authored research manuscripts and contributed to H3Africa training and capacity-development activities through H3ABioNet’s precision medicine workgroup.

Investigated allosteric pockets and dynamic residue network hubs in Falcipain-2 and Falcipain-3, including variants linked to artemisinin resistance, using in silico approaches and missense mutation profiling. Developed reproducible Python/R workflows with HPC for structural analyses and mentored MSc students while contributing to H3ABioNet precision medicine efforts.

Optimised molecular docking pipelines for protein–ligand interactions and improved efficiency and reliability of binding affinity predictions. Ran molecular dynamics simulations with GROMACS and downstream analyses on HPC using GNU parallel and MPI-based parallel programming.

Managed day-to-day operations of the Molecular Diagnostics and Gene Cloning laboratory, onboarding and supervising industrial training students. Ensured SOP and biosafety compliance while contributing to team meetings, training sessions, and workshops that supported laboratory capacity development.

Assessed antibacterial activity of ethyl acetate extracts from Actinomyces strains against six human pathogens, including MRSA and Klebsiella pneumoniae. Contributed to identification of potential antimicrobial agents from natural products to support further antimicrobial resistance and therapeutic development work.

Instructed third-year students on using bioinformatics software and databases for practical research exercises and data analysis. Mentored students one-on-one and in small groups, troubleshooting computational issues to ensure understanding of applied bioinformatics methods.

PhD in Bioinformatics at Rhodes University. Thesis: “Falcipain 2 and 3 as malarial drug targets: Deciphering the effects of missense mutations and identification of allosteric modulators via computational approaches.”

MSc in Bioinformatics at Rhodes University. Thesis: “Targeting allosteric sites of Escherichia coli heat shock protein 70 for antibiotic development.”

BSc (Hons) in Microbiology at the University of Lagos. Thesis: “Antibacterial Activities of Ethyl Acetate Extracts of Actinomyces Isolated from Lagos Lagoon.”