The BioGeMT team of the Centre for Molecular Medicine & Biobanking at the University of Malta has initiated a new international research collaboration with Sabanci University in Turkey to investigate microRNA target prediction using phylogenetic analysis.

The 24-month PHACT-miRBind project is funded by Xjenza Malta, in collaboration with the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, through the MCST/TUBITAK joint call for Research and Innovation proposals in Artificial Intelligence in Health.

The research will examine how evolutionary conservation analysis can enhance the accuracy of microRNA target identification. MicroRNAs are small regulatory molecules that control gene expression and are implicated in various diseases including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and cardiovascular conditions. Current computational methods for predicting microRNA targets face significant challenges in distinguishing functional interactions from non-functional sequence similarities.

The project will investigate the integration of phylogenetic conservation scores with machine learning approaches for target prediction.

The Centre's existing miRBind deep learning framework will be extended to incorporate evolutionary data from Sabanci University's PHACT (Phylogeny-Aware Computing of Tolerance) methodology, which analyses conservation patterns across species using phylogenetic trees and ancestral sequence reconstruction.

Prof. Panagiotis Alexiou leads the research team of the BioGeMT project at the Centre for Molecular Medicine & Biobanking, while Dr Ogun Adebali directs the efforts at Sabanci University. The collaboration will involve joint data analysis, algorithm development, and benchmarking.

The research outcomes will be made available to the scientific community through open-source software repositories and public datasets. The improved prediction tools are expected to advance understanding of microRNA regulatory networks and their roles in disease mechanisms.

The project is funded by the Malta Council for Science & Technology (MCST) and TUBITAK.

Information and image source: