Falak Naz, a predoctoral researcher at the Centre for Research in Information and Communication Technologies (CITIC) of the University of A Coruña and recipient of a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, completed a research stay in April at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), located at the Wellcome Genome Campus in Cambridge (United Kingdom).

During her visit, Falak took part in the specialised programme Introduction to Multi-Omics Data Integration and Visualization, where she had the opportunity to present her current work on the identification of cancer biomarkers. As part of this research, she is using advanced data science tools and multi-omics integration methods — such as multi-omics canonical correlation analysis and factor analysis — to identify the role of epigenetic modifiers in the association between messenger RNA expression and proteins.

Although the proteomic characterisation of human tumours is helping to better understand the biological processes involved in cancer initiation, dissemination, and drug response, there are still few samples with complete proteomic data. In contrast, transcriptomic profiles are routinely used in clinical settings, despite the lack of a clear correlation between both types of data. Falak’s work aims to bridge this gap and contribute to a more effective, evidence-based precision medicine.

This stay allowed her to engage with international leaders in genomics and bioinformatics, exchange knowledge, and explore innovative approaches based on large-scale data. It was made possible thanks to the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA), CITIC, and the Xunta de Galicia.

Falak Naz is part of the research team led by Dr. Carlos Fernández-Lozano at CITIC, where she works on projects focused on the computational analysis of biomedical data for early cancer diagnosis and personalised treatment.