DR. MIRA CHAAR
Dr. Mira EL Chaar is an Associate Professor of infectious diseases and microbiology at the Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences. She received her MSc in Microbiology and Immunology from the American University of Beirut, and her PhD in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Cambridge, UK. She joined UOB as a full-time faculty member in Spring 2012. She was appointed to take charge of the Clinical Laboratory Science graduate program in January 2016.
Dr. El Chaar’s interdisciplinary research unites two strands: clinical and molecular microbiology. Her research focuses on the use of molecular epidemiology in infectious disease surveillance. She evaluates diagnostic tests and develops molecular assays for the identification of microbial pathogens in clinical samples. She implemented syndromic panel-based tests for the detection of pathogens from clinical samples. Her research work also focuses on the molecular mechanisms that determine the persistence of HBV infection in blood donors. Dr. El Chaar received various grants and her research has been published in international peer-reviewed articles and presented at various international conferences.
In 2021, Dr El Chaar spent a sabbatical year at McGill University. During her stay, she acquired new bioinformatic skills by analyzing microbial genomes using whole-genome sequencing technologies and advanced state-of-the-art bioinformatics software, workflows, and applications for analyzing metagenomic data.
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