Sikander Hayat, Ph.D.

Sikander Hayat is a senior computational biologist at the Joint Bayer-Broad cardiovascular precision medicine group. He uses data integration, machine learning, and single-cell sequencing analyses to identify novel targets and biomarkers of patient selection and drug resistance. As part of the cardiology lab, Hayat works on integrative analyses of single-cell transcriptomics data from human and rat disease and normal samples to provide novel biological insights on disease and normal states, and identify novel targets for drug discovery.

Previously, he worked on multiple oncology drug discovery projects in the Bayer-Broad oncology collaboration and identified novel anti-cancer targets and genomic biomarkers of drug response using machine learning on pooled cell line assays. 

Prior to joining Bayer in 2016, Hayat trained as a post-doctoral researcher on protein folding using evolutionary couplings analyses and cancer informatics at Stockholm University, Harvard Medical School, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He received his Ph.D. in bioinformatics at the University of Saarland, Germany, where he developed computational tools for predicting the secondary structure of membrane proteins. Hayat holds a masters in molecular bioengineering from the Technical University of Dresden, Germany, and bachelors in computer science from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, India.