Tayab Soomro

Bioinformatics Data Scientist Lead

I lead bioinformatics at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Brandon Research and Development Centre, where I split my time between supporting the breeding programs and building the tools I think they will need next.

My route in was through computer science rather than biology, and that has shaped what I work on. Most of the problems I find interesting are not open biological questions — they are engineering problems standing between a breeder and an answer they could otherwise already have.

Alongside the research I co-founded PathoScan, which builds portable crop disease diagnostics for growers and agronomists. Same motivation, different route: a test result that arrives in thirty minutes changes a decision, and one that arrives in a week usually does not.

Positions

2025 —

Bioinformatics Data Scientist Lead

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Brandon RDC

Principal investigator on independent bioinformatics projects in population genomics, trait discovery and diagnostics; bioinformatics support to the centre’s breeding and research programs; supervision of students and interns.

2024 – 2025

Bioinformatics Consultant

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada

GWAS in Vicia faba for rust resistance and heat tolerance; annotation of Aphanomyces genomes; integration of the Nanopore Mk1C for point-of-care detection of plant and animal pathogens.

2023

Senior Computational Biologist

FoodImprover Inc.

Association mapping across ~1,000 apple accessions and 5,000+ features, and a full-stack platform for exploring the results.

2020 – 2023

Computational Biologist

NRGene Canada Inc.

Industry-grade Python tooling and AWS-based pipeline infrastructure for genomics at scale, in a 100+ person organisation.

2022 —

Bioinformatics Consultant

University of Saskatchewan

Workshops and training programs on Linux, HPC, Python and cloud computing for graduate students; HPC resource management.

2017 – 2020

Student Research Assistant, then Student Bioinformatician

Links Lab, University of Saskatchewan · AAFC

Where the nanopore work started: MinION usability, real-time base-call visualisation, and the first version of what became MICAS and then nanoCAS.

Education

2020 – 2022

M.Sc. Agriculture

Dalhousie University

Institute of Comparative Genomics. Thesis: exploring the genetics of aroma production in apples.

2015 – 2020

B.Sc. (Honours), Computer Science and Bioinformatics

University of Saskatchewan

Thesis: kinome responses of Arabidopsis to clubroot (Plasmodiophora brassicae) infection.

Beyond the lab

2024

Canadian delegate, G20 Young Entrepreneurs’ Alliance Summit, São Paulo, Brazil — drafting recommendations for policymakers ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit.

2024

Senior Data Analyst, Data For Good Regina — dashboards and regression analysis for the Regina Food Bank on donation sources, demographics and program effectiveness.

2023

Co-founder, PathoScan Technologies — portable in-field crop disease diagnostics.

2020

Judge, regional science fairs (through 2023).

Grants and awards

2025

Front Row Ventures, AgTech investment ($50,000).

2025

Ag-West Bio Startup Fund, AgTech investment ($50,000).

2024

StartupTNT Summit X Finale winner ($100,000).

2024