Webinar on Microbiology

Amir Hassan is a student by profession. He holds a BS in Organic Chemistry from Govt. Post Graduate College Mardan, Pakistan and currently wants to enroll in Master of Subject (MS) degree in Chemistry. Amir Hassan has 1 years of experience in natural product isolation from medicinal plants and 2 year of Chemistry laboratory work. He has also been involved in investigations of medicinal plants for cancer treatment. Amir Hassan identified a medicinal plants extracts activity higher than available antibiotics in markets recently and currently working on it.

Soumaya Tounsi-Hammami is currently a PhD student at National Agronomic Institute of Tunisia (INAT). She obtained her Master degrees in plant biotechnology from INAT (2014). Her research interests are focused on the interactions between plants and associated benefic microorganisms: Rhizobia and PGPR strains. Particularly, she is interested in isolation of entophytic bacteria from nodules of different legumes, screening plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria for improving growth and yield of legumes as well as cereals, formulation of bacterial biofertilizers, and molecular characterization of rhizobial and PGPR bacteria.

I am Md. Amdadul Huq, native of Bangladesh. Now, I am working as Assistant Professor, Dept. of Food and Nutrition, Chung-Ang University, Anseong, Republic of Korea. Here I briefly mention my biography.

Mayo University Hospital, Westport Road, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Republic of Ireland

Bala is a microbiologist and a drug hunter who received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and post-doctoral training at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY. Subsequently he gained leadership and management experience over two decades in the pharmaceutical industry. Among various roles, Bala has been a Project Leader, a Principal Investigator, a Department Head, & Executive Director at AstraZeneca India, and most recently co-Founder and head of R&D, Bugworks Research Inc. Bala’s technical experience is rich with 25+ years in Infection research and 20+ years in anti-bacterial drug discovery. Bala has led projects from basic biology through to early clinical development; pioneered the PK/PD science for anti-TB drugs; co-discovered the target for the anti-TB drug, Isoniazid; co-discovered AZD5847 & TBA-7371, novel drug candidates for the treatment of tuberculosis; co-discovered MMV253, a novel drug candidate for the treatment of malaria. Besides possessing extensive drug discovery experience, Bala is articulate with strong people skills and brings rich experience in working with cross-disciplinary and trans-national teams, establishing and sustaining collaborations as well as public-private partnerships. He has been a Principal Investigator in several prestigious research grants from CARB-X, Wellcome Trust, NIAID, BMGF, EUFW7, and BIRAC - India. Bala has a strong publication track record with over 40 peer-reviewed publications in International high-impact journals such as Science, Nature, PNAS (USA) etc. He has chaired International conferences such as the Gordon Research Conference on TB Drug Development.

Dr.Ramin Lak is a Molecular Microbiologist and he works with two well-known privated hospital laboratories as Molecular Diagnosis Laboratory head including Pars Hospital Laboratory and Bahman Hospital Laboratory in Tehran, Iran. Ramin is a Ph.D of Microbiology and he has more than 10 years of clinical laboratory experiences in Molecular Microbiology and Molecular diagnosis testings and he is a member of the infection control team in Pars hospital. Ramin is a member of Europian society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ESCMID). He was invited to the department of clinical microbiology at Karolinska university Laboratory ,Stockholm, Sweden during May 2019 for a professional exchange within the ESCMID observership program.

Mukta Das Gupta is a PhD student at Medical School of Australian National University (ANU). She obtained her bachelor degree in Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) and Master of Science (MS) in Microbiology at Chittagong Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Bangladesh. During her MS research, she investigated the prevalence and antimicrobial sensitivity pattern of Enterohemorrhagic E. coli in Black Bengal goat. She is currently holding a position as an Assistant Professor in Department of Microbiology and Veterinary Public Health at Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, CVASU, Bangladesh. Her research interests are in the area of microbial genomics and bioinformatics.

Dr. Muhammd Shahid is working as assistant professor in Department of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology, Government College University, Faisalabad Pakistan. He is an early career scientist with four years of Teaching/Research experience at university level, where he is involved in teaching various graduate and postgraduate courses and supervising postgraduate research students. He secured Indigenous PhD fellowship and completed his PhD in Biotechnology with specialization in Plant-microbe interactions in 2013 from National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (NIBGE), Faisalabad, Pakistan. During his PhD, he also secured 6 month research fellowship from Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan to conduct part of his PhD research at Department of Microbial Ecology, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He has a keen interest to study biochemical and molecular mechanisms of plant-bacterial interactions occurring in rhizosphere and phyto-beneficial traits exhibited by Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPRs). Studying bioremediation potential of bacteria isolated from polluted soil and wastewater is also his field of interest. He is also keen to study physiological and genetic mechanisms involved in bacteria-mediated induction of abiotic stress tolerance in plants. Currently, he has 22 national and international publications with cumulative impact factor of more than 30. He also has one book chapter in international book and presented his research at various national and international conferences. He also has won research funding at national level to facilitate his student’s research.

Eugene I. Eremenko is a chief researcher and since 1978 works in Anthrax Lab at Stavropol Plague Control Research Institute in Russian Federation. He holds PhD, DSc, Professor. Eugene’s sphere of scientific interests includes microbiology, genetics and epidemiology of anthrax. Eugene participated in the Exchange Visitor Program at Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA in 1998, High Containment Laboratory Biosafety Workshop in 2004, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, International Conferences on Anthrax. He has also been involved in anthrax outbreaks investigations in Russia. Recent Eugene’s works are devoted to molecular typing of anthrax pathogen strains. He trained several specialists in the field of microbiology who received PhD and Dsc degrees under his leadership.