Curriculum Vitae

General information

Name
Rana Zohreh
Role
Molecular Geneticist · Computational Biologist
Location
Tehran, Iran
Email
ranazohreh@gmail.com
Languages
Persian (native), English (professional working proficiency)

Education

2021–2025

M.Sc. Molecular Genetics

Islamic Azad University, Central Tehran Branch · GPA 18.52 / 20

  • Thesis: comparison of common mutations and gene networks in prostate and testicular cancer using bioinformatics tools — graded Excellent. Supervisor: Dr. Nastaran Asghari Moghaddam; Advisor: Dr. Mina Ramezani.
2016–2020

B.Sc. Molecular Genetics

Islamic Azad University, Qom · GPA 15.84 / 20

Research experience

2024–present

Graduate Researcher — Population-Specific ceRNA Networks

Dept. of Biology, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University

  • Constructed population-specific ceRNA networks from RNA-seq (GSE104131; DESeq2), integrating HMDD v4, starBase, and four target-prediction databases.
  • Validated regulatory axes in TCGA-PRAD via correlation (BH-FDR), expression-matched backgrounds, and Fisher Z cross-population testing.
  • Prioritized axes with a four-criterion composite score; mapped druggable targets through a custom DGIdb v5 GraphQL integration.
2024–2025

Researcher — ML for Early-Onset Prostate Cancer Biomarkers

Dept. of Biology, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University

  • Integrated WGCNA co-expression with DESeq2 on TCGA-PRAD (White, <55 yrs); found 485 candidate genes enriched in cytoskeleton-organization pathways.
  • Built a nested leave-one-out pipeline with LASSO across SVM, RF, and ANN (AUC 0.86 / 0.89 / 0.91).
  • Identified lncRNA PCSEAT as the shared biomarker; confirmed with permutation importance and SHAP; validated in GSE115414.
2021–2025

MSc Thesis Researcher — Comparative Cancer Genomics

Dept. of Biology, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University

  • Compared African American vs. European American patients across prostate (TCGA-PRAD) and testicular (TCGA-TGCT) cohorts, integrating expression with somatic mutation profiles (cBioPortal).
  • Built PPI and ceRNA networks for all four population–cohort groups; identified population-specific hubs and distinct pathways.
2023

Laboratory Intern — Wet-Lab Training

GenIran, Tehran

  • Hands-on molecular biology (DNA/RNA extraction, PCR, qRT-PCR, electrophoresis) and mammalian cell culture (passaging, freeze/thaw, MTT and AO/PI viability assays).

Skills

Programming

R, Python

Transcriptomics & RNA-seq

DESeq2, edgeR, limma, TCGAbiolinks, WGCNA, GSEA, clusterProfiler, variance-stabilizing normalization, batch-effect correction

Network & functional analysis

ceRNA / gene-regulatory networks, Spearman/Pearson, Fisher Z, GO/KEGG, PPI hub analysis (Cytoscape, STRING, GeneMANIA, CytoHubba, MCODE)

Machine learning

LASSO, SVM, Random Forest, XGBoost, ANN; nested leave-one-out CV; permutation importance, SHAP; scikit-learn; single-cell/spatial (scanpy, squidpy); PyTorch

Survival & drug–gene

Cox proportional hazards, time-dependent ROC/AUC; DGIdb v5 (GraphQL); CTD curation

Laboratory

Nucleic-acid extraction (phenol-chloroform, salting-out, TRIzol, kit); cDNA synthesis; conventional / RFLP / ARMS / Tetra-ARMS / qRT-PCR; primer design; agarose & PAGE electrophoresis with silver staining; mammalian cell culture; MTT and AO/PI assays

Honors & awards

2024

Best Oral Presentation Award

2nd International Congress of Cancer Genomics (CGC2024), Tehran

Publications & presentations

See the Publications page for the full list.