Artem Babaian, Ph.D.
160 College Street, The Donnelly Centre
University of Toronto, M5S 3E1
artem@rRNA.ca | http:// rRNA.ca

Education + Research
Assistant Professor – Molecular Genetics
Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto
Donnelly Center for Cellular + Biomolecular Research RNA virus discovery for Pandemic prevention

09/2022 –Banting Post-Doctoral Researcher
06/2021 – 09/2022
Warren Lab, CIMR, University of Cambridge, UK
Post-Doctoral Research Associate, St. Edmunds College, UK Deep RNA Virus Discovery and Virus-Host Interaction Networks
Post-Doctoral Fellow – Independent
10/2019 – 05/2021
University of British Columbia / Independent Researcher, Vancouver, BC
 Genetic and Epigenetic Variation of Ribosomal RNA in Human Cancer
 Ultra High-Throughput RNA Virus Discovery
Doctor of Philosophy – Medical Genetics
09/2012 – 09/2019
Mager Lab, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
 Endogenous Retroviruses Drive Transcriptional Innovation in Human Cancer A+ earned in all courses; first in class
Honours Bachelor of Science – Biology (Molecular Biology & Genetics Co-op)
McMaster University, Hamilton, ON
09/2007-12/2011
 Graduated with distinction
 Honours Thesis w/ Dr. Ali Ashkar
01/2011-02/2012
Non-canonical IL15 Signalling in Murine Macrophages.

Publications
1.

Edgar, R C et al, Babaian A*. Petabase-scale sequence alignment catalyses viral
discovery. Nature. 2022.

2.

Babaian A and Edgar, R C. Ribovirus classification by a polymerase barcode sequence.
bioRxiv. 2021.

3.

Babaian A*, Rothe K, Girodat D, Minia I, Djondovic S, et al. Loss of m 1acp3Ψ ribosomal
RNA modification is a major feature of cancer. Cell Reports. 2020.

4.

Rothe K, Babaian A, et al, Jiang X. Integrin-Linked Kinase Mediates TherapeuticResistance of Quiescent CML Stem Cells to Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors. Cell Stem Cell.
2020.

*Corresponding Author

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5.

Lin H, Rothe K, Chen M, Wu A, Babaian A, et al, Jiang X. The miR-185/PAK6 Axis
Predicts Therapy Response and Regulates Survival of Drug-Resistant Leukemic StemCells in CML. Blood. 2020.

6.

Kasukabe, M. et al. (amongst authors: Babaian A), Weng A. Synthetic modeling reveals
HOXB genes are critical for the initiation and maintenance of human leukemia. NatCommun. 2019.

7.

Babaian A*, Thompson IR, Lever J, Gagnier L, Karimi MM, Mager DL. LIONS: analysis
suite for detecting and quantifying transposable element initiated transcription fromRNA-seq. Bioinformatics. 2019.

8.

Babaian A*, Ebou A, Fegen A, Kam HY, Novakovsky GE, et al. bioSyntax: syntax
highlighting for computational biology. BMC Bioinformatics. 2018.

9.

hackseq Organizing Committee 2016*. hackseq: Catalyzing collaboration between
biological and computational scientists via hackathon. F1000Res. 2017.

10.

Lock FE, Babaian A, et al, Mager DL. A novel isoform of IL-33 revealed by screening fortransposable element promoted genes in human colorectal cancer. PLoS ONE. 2017.

11.

Babaian A, Mager DL. Endogenous retroviral promoter exaptation in human cancer.
Mob DNA. 2016.

12.

Babaian A, Romanish MT, Gagnier L, Kuo LY, Karimi MM, Steidl C, Mager DL. Oncoexaptation of an endogenous retroviral LTR drives IRF5 expression in Hodgkin
lymphoma. Oncogene. 2016.

13.

Gillgrass A, Gill N, Babaian A, Ashkar AA. The absence or overexpression of IL-15
drastically alters breast cancer metastasis via effects on NK cells, CD4 T cells, andmacrophages. J Immunol. 2014.

14.

Lock FE, et al. (amongst authors: Babaian A), Mager DL. Distinct isoform of FABP7
revealed by screening for retroelement-activated genes in diffuse large B-celllymphoma. PNAS. 2014.

15.

Mian MF, Ahmed AN, Rad M, Babaian A, Bowdish D, Ashkar AA. Length of dsRNA (polyI:C) drives distinct innate immune responses, depending on the cell type. J Leukoc Biol.
2013.

16.

Zhang Y, Babaian A, Gagnier L, Mager DL. Visualized computational predictions oftranscriptional effects by intronic endogenous retroviruses. PLoS ONE. 2013.

Awards + Fellowships
Banting Post-Doctoral Fellowship (CIHR)$140,000

06/2021 – 06/2023

Amazon AWS Cloud Innovation Grant$418,800

04/2020 - 01/2023

Roman M. Babicki Fellowship in Medical Research$50,000

09/2017 – 08/2019

RNA Society Travel Fellowship$1337

Canadian Leukemia and Lymphoma Society – New
Idea Grant (1st Nationally)
Amazon AWS Research Grant$75,000

07/2018 – 08/2020$10,689

07/2018 – 07/2019

Patricia Baird Prize for Excellence in Medical
Genetics$500

05/2019

07/2018
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RNA Society Travel Fellowship$1182

05/2018

hackseq17: Genomics Hackathon – 1 Place$35010/2017

UBC Four Year Fellowship – PhD$18,200 +$54,600*$1,462

09/2014 – 08/2018

Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate$105,000
Scholarship – Doctoral (NSERC CGS-D)
RiboWest 2017– Graduate Poster Prize (Runner up) $200

09/2014 – 08/2017

stUBC Four Year Fellowship – Tuition Award

09/2017 – 08/2018

05/2017

IDT CRISPR Challenge 2016 – 1st Prize$2,00012/2016

TFRI-BC Node Research Day – Poster Prize (1st)$250

11/2016

MedGen Research Day 2016 – Poster Prize (1st)$150

11/2016UBC Faculty of Medicine Discussion Group Grant$1,500UBC Graduate Student Travel Fund – PhD$500Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate
Scholarship – Masters (NSERC CGS-M)
UBC Graduate Student Travel Fund – Masters$17,500

UBC Medical Genetics Entrance Scholarship$16,000

09/2012 – 08/2013

McMaster Senate Scholarship$1,50009/2010 – 09/2011

McMaster Honour Entrance Award$750$500

Σ $917,970

09/2015 – 09/2016
07/2015
09/2013 – 09/2016
07/2013

09/2007*Accepted in title only

Select Presentations
1. Babaian A. (2022) Computational biology Will Lead Future Pandemic mitigation.
Invited Speaker at Intelligent Systems for Molecular Biology 2022. Madison, WI.
2. Babaian A. (2022) Foundations for the discovery of 100 million RNA viruses. Invited
Speaker at European Virus Bioinformatics Center viruses in silico lectures. Digital.
3. Babaian A. (2022) Increasing known RNA viruses by an order of magnitude; Again.
Invited Speaker at RNA Club. University of Cambridge, UK.
4. Babaian A, et al. (2021) Exploring the planetary virome for novel coronaviruses.
Invited speaker at Amazon Health and Life Sciences Symposium. Digital.
5. Babaian A. et al. (2021) Petabase-scale sequence alignment catalyses viral discovery.
Oral Presentation at 26th RNA Society Meeting. Digital.
6. Babaian A. et al. (2020) Serratus: Ultra-deep search to discover novel coronaviruses.
Invited Speaker at Institute Pasteur, INCEPTION lecture. Digital.
7. Babaian A. et al. (2020) Serratus: Ultra-deep search to discover novel coronaviruses.
Invited Speaker at SciLifeLabs, BiG Talks. Digital. (available on YouTube)
8. Babaian A. et al. (2020) Loss of m1acp3Ψ ribosomal RNA modification is a major
feature of cancer. Oral Presentation at 25th RNA Society Meeting. Digital.
9. Babaian A. et al. (2019) The Onco-Ribosome: A frontier of ribosome heterogeneity.
Poster at 24th RNA Society Meeting, Krakow, Poland.
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10. Babaian A. et al. (2019) Onco-Ribosomes: Ribosomal RNA as the last great oncogene.
Invited Speaker at Leukemia/Bone Marrow Transplant Program Noon Rounds.
Vancouver, BC.
11. Babaian A, et al. (2018) Oncogenic Variation of Ribosomal RNA in Human Cancer. Oral
Presentation at 23rd RNA Society Meeting. Berkeley, USA.
12. Babaian A. (2017) Intra- and Inter-individual genetic variation in human ribosomalRNA. Poster at RiboWest 2017. Vancouver, BC.
13. Babaian A, et al. (2016) Onco-exaptation: endogenous retroviral LTRs as promoters ofoncogenic transcripts in cancer. Poster at American Society of Human Genetics
Meeting 2016 and Terry Fox Research Institute Conference 2016. Vancouver, BC.
14. Babaian A, et al. (2015) Onco-exaptation of Endogenous Retroviral LTRs in Cancer
Evolution. Oral Presentation at the Mobile DNA in Mammalian Genomes Conference.
Florida, USA.
15. Babaian A, et al. (2013) Endogenous Retroviruses and the Dark Regulatory Network.
Invited Speaker at the VanBug Bioinformatics Seminar. Vancouver, BC.

Select Media Engagements
1. Supercomputer helps Canadian researcher uncover thousands of viruses that could cause
human diseases (2022). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. National news.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/supercomputer-virus-study-disease-1.6345158
2. Researchers discover 130,000 new viruses, giving us a new way to watch for emerging
pathogens (2022). CBC Quirks and Quarks. National radio.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/jan-29-130-000-new-viruses-discovered-chimpanzeesocial-learning-what-s-moving-the-tectonic-plates-and-more-1.6329726
3. New Dangers? Computers uncover 100,000 novel viruses in old genetic data (2022).
Science Magazine. International news. https://www.science.org/content/article/newdangers-computers-uncover-100-000-novel-viruses-old-genetic-data

Select Community Experience
Instructional Skills Workshop
Facilitator
Co-founder + Organizer
Co-founder + Producer
President + Executive
Reviewer

Emergency Medical Responder

UBC Centre for Teaching, Learning &Technology.
hackseq: Genomics hackathon(hackseq.com).
Jobs in Science Interview Podcast(JobsInScience.ca).
Varsity Outdoor Club, UBC(ubc-voc.com).
Nature Genetics, NAR Genomics andBioinformatics, Bioinformatics, Frontiers inChemistry: Cellular Biochemistry, Leakey
Foundation.
Emergency First Response Team, McMaster.

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