Hosna Jabbari, PhD
ENG Biomedical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering - Deans Office
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Personal Website: https://thecobralab.com/
Contact
Professor
ENG Biomedical Engineering
- jabbari@ualberta.ca
- Phone
- (780) 492-8111
- Address
-
13-230 Donadeo Innovation Centre For Engineering
9211 116 StEdmonton ABT6G 2H5
Associate Dean-Grad Students
Faculty of Engineering - Deans Office
- jabbari@ualberta.ca
Overview
Area of Study / Keywords
RNA Bioinformatics Computational biology RNA therapy RNA structure-function characterization Precision Health Design
About
Dr. Hosna Jabbari holds a University of Alberta Engineering Research Chair in Computational Biology and is a Full Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, with a cross-appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. She directs the Computational Biology Research and Analytics Laboratory (COBRA Lab).
Her research integrates bioinformatics, computational biology, machine learning, and data science to investigate the molecular mechanisms of human disease and inform advances in diagnostics and RNA therapeutics. A central focus is RNA structure prediction and the relationship between RNA structure and function: understanding how RNA folds, how its structure influences biological processes, and how these insights can guide therapeutic design.
Before joining the University of Alberta, Dr. Jabbari held professorial appointments at Pennsylvania State University, the University of Victoria, and the University of Vermont. She earned her BSc in Computer Science from the University of Victoria and her MSc and PhD in Computer Science, specializing in bioinformatics, from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Research
Our Mission: Help diagnose and cure human diseases by developing novel diagnostics and RNA therapeutics through research using techniques from bioinformatics, machine learning, data science and computational genomics.
Focus: RNA, transcriptomics, RNA-RNA interaction, RNA-protein interaction, RNA therapy, Understanding Aging process and disease progression are focus of our group, alongside explainable machine learning with applications in medicine.
Network: We have a large network of members and collaborators around the world.
You can find more information about the group at COBRA Lab webpage
Teaching
I am teaching "Design and analysis of bioinformatics algorithms" (BME 415/615). If you are keen to have some hands on experience in bioinformatics, try it out.
Announcements
We are always looking for exceptional students who are passionate about RNA bioinformatics and have strong backgrounds in algorithm design, programming, and artificial intelligence or machine learning.
If this matches your profile, please drop us a message (share a copy of your CV and transcripts).
Talks and NEWS:
- Gairdner Alberta Partnered AI + Health Research Symposium, September 2026
- RNA Collaborative Seminar Series, December 2024
- Vancouver Bioinformatics User Group (VanBug) 2023 talk
- Computer Science News Report 2022
Courses
BME 415 - Design and Analysis of Bioinformatics Algorithms
An introduction to design and development of bioinformatics algorithms and their applications in bioinformatics. Topics may include algorithms for sequence comparison/alignment, large-scale biological database search, evolutionary tree reconstruction, and identification of important features in nucleic acid and protein sequences and underlying computational techniques.
BME 615 - Design and Analysis of Bioinformatics Algorithms
An introduction to design and development of bioinformatics algorithms and their applications in bioinformatics. Topics may include algorithms for sequence comparison/alignment, large-scale biological database search, evolutionary tree reconstruction, and identification of important features in nucleic acid and protein sequences and underlying computational techniques. Credit cannot be obtained for both BME 415 and BME 615.
Featured Publications
Finn Archinuk, Hosna Jabbari
2026 May; 10.64898/2026.05.22.727263
Mateo Gray, Sebastian Will, Hosna Jabbari
Bioinformatics. 2026 May; 10.1093/bioinformatics/btag194
Finn Archinuk, Haley Greenyer, Ulrike Stege, Steffany A L Bennett, Miroslava Cuperlovic-Culf, Hosna Jabbari
Bioinformatics Advances. 2024 December; 10.1093/bioadv/vbaf286
Mateo Gray, Luke Trinity, Ulrike Stege, Yann Ponty, Sebastian Will, Hosna Jabbari
Bioinformatics. 2024 December; 10.1093/bioinformatics/btae748
Ivan Perez, Ulrike Stege, Hosna Jabbari
2024 December; 10.1101/2024.12.23.630208
Alison Ziesel, Jennifer Reeves, Anastasia Mallidou, Lorelei Newton, Ryan Rhodes, Jie Zhang, Theone Paterson, Hosna Jabbari
2024 October; 10.1101/2024.10.29.620898
Tara Newman, Hiu Fung Kevin Chang, Hosna Jabbari
IEEE/ACM Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. 2024 May; 10.1109/TCBB.2024.3362308
Luke Trinity, Ian Wark, Lance Lansing, Hosna Jabbari, Ulrike Stege
PLOS Computational Biology. 2023 February; 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010922
Mateo Gray, Sean Chester, Hosna Jabbari
BMC Bioinformatics. 2022 December; 10.1186/s12859-022-04673-3
Alison Ziesel, Hosna Jabbari
[]. 2022 September; 10.1101/2022.09.20.508790
Tristan Zaborniak, Juan Giraldo, Hausi Muller, Hosna Jabbari, Ulrike Stege
2022 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Computing and Engineering (QCE). 2022 September; 10.1109/qce53715.2022.00037
Majid Khabbazian, Hosna Jabbari
Nature Computational Science. 2022 June; 10.1038/s43588-022-00253-w
Maryam Nakhaei-Nejad, Luke Trinity, Hosna Jabbari, manijeh pasdar, Nadia Jahroudi
Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2021 September; 10.3390/jcm10184161
Raul Ivan Perez Martell, Alison Ziesel, Hosna Jabbari, Ulrike Stege
2021 September; 10.1101/2021.09.07.459345
Tara Newman, Hiu Fung Kevin Chang, Hosna Jabbari
2021 IEEE 9th International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI). 2021 August; 10.1109/ichi52183.2021.00082
Luke Trinity, Lance Lansing, Hosna Jabbari, Ulrike Stege
2021 IEEE 9th International Conference on Healthcare Informatics (ICHI). 2021 August; 10.1109/ichi52183.2021.00080
Maryam Nakhaei-Nejad, Maikel Farhan, Anahita Mojiri, Hosna Jabbari, Allan G. Murray, Nadia Jahroudi
Stem Cells. 2019 April; 10.1002/stem.2978
Hosna Jabbari, Ian Wark, Carlo Montemagno, Sebastian Will
Bioinformatics. 2018 November; 10.1093/bioinformatics/bty420
Hosna Jabbari, Ian Wark, Carlo Montemagno
PLOS ONE. 2018 April; 10.1371/journal.pone.0194583
Hosna Jabbari, Ian Wark, Carlo Montemagno, Sebastian Will
Schloss Dagstuhl - Leibniz-Zentrum fuer Informatik GmbH, Wadern/Saarbruecken, Germany. 2017 January; 10.4230/LIPICS.WABI.2017.12
Hosna Jabbari, Maral Aminpour, Carlo Montemagno
ACS Combinatorial Science. 2015 October; 10.1021/acscombsci.5b00079
Sebastian Will, Hosna Jabbari
Lecture Notes in Computer Science. 2015 January; 10.1007/978-3-662-48221-6_19
Hosna Jabbari, Anne Condon
BMC Bioinformatics. 2014 December; 10.1186/1471-2105-15-147
Ho-Lin Chen, Anne Condon, Hosna Jabbari
Journal of Computational Biology. 2009 June; 10.1089/cmb.2008.0219
Anne Condon, Hosna Jabbari
Theoretical Computer Science. 2009 February; 10.1016/j.tcs.2008.09.042
Hosna Jabbari, Anne Condon, Shelly Zhao
Journal of Computational Biology. 2008 March; 10.1089/cmb.2007.0198
Hosna Jabbari, Jon C. Muzio, Lin Sun
10th Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design Architectures, Methods and Tools (DSD 2007). 2007 August; 10.1109/dsd.2007.4341489
Hosna Jabbari, Jon C. Muzio, Lin Sun
2007 Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering. 2007 January; 10.1109/ccece.2007.27
View additional publications
Research Students
Currently accepting undergraduate students for research project supervision.
We have various positions for undergraduate students. If you have experience in programming and interest in biology, email jabbari@ualberta.ca with a copy of your CV and transcripts.