Professor Xin Gao leads the so-called SFB research group, which stands for

Structural and Functional Bioinformatics Research Group

We are a group, led by Prof. Xin Gao, in Computer, Electrical and Mathematical Sciences & Engineering (CEMSE) Division at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) that focuses on bioinformatics, computational biology, machine learning, and big data. We are interested in building computational models, designing efficient and effective algorithms, and developing machine learning techniques to solve key open problems along the path from protein sequence analysis, to protein 3D structure determination, to protein function prediction, and to understanding the roles proteins play in complex biological networks.

We work at the intersection between computer science and biology. Almost all the members of the group have computer science background. In the direction of computer science, we focus on developing theories, algorithms, and methods in the fields related to deep learning, probabilistic graphical models, kernel methods, matrix factorization, optimization, and graph algorithms. This is our curiosity-driven research.