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I have a PhD from Department of Plant Pathology, Faculty of Agriculture Sciences, University of the Punjab Lahore, Pakistan, and my Ph.D. thesis was on the “Genetic diversity of begomoviruses affecting diverse host plants in Peri-urban areas of Lahore''. I have worked on the molecular and biological characterization of begomoviruses and their DNA-satellites infecting in diverse host plants, construction of infectious clones of begomoviruses and their associated DNA-satellites for agrobacterium mediated inoculation in the experimental model plant Nicotiana benthamiana. These clones were also used to conduct biolistic inoculation experiments to fulfill Koch’s postulates in Dr. Judith Brown’s Lab at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Confirmation and evaluation of infectivity assays was done in the inoculated N. benthamiana plants using PCR, RT-PCR and Southern blot hybridization. I have hands on experience on various molecular biology techniques including PCR, RCA, restriction digestion, sequencing and sequence analysis, Standard Demarcation Tool (SDT) used for geminivirus taxonomy and species demarcation, phylogenetic studies, recombination analysis, construction of infectious clones, biolistic inoculation experiments and infectivity assays. Many first and novel reports are reported during my research work, in a wide range of plant species for the first time from Pakistan and also have expertise in molecular characterization of fungal as well as bacterial genome.
I have served as faculty member in different organizations, currently representing UVAS, Lahore. I received nationally competitive DPCC grants (Doctoral Program Coordination Committee) and IRSIP-HEC fellowship (Higher Education Commission- International Research Support Initiative Program) and carried out part of my PhD research in School of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson. I have presented oral and poster presentations at International conferences, and won 1st and 2nd place awards. I am also active member of organizing international conferences, cabinet member of Pakistan Phytopathological society (councilor) and also reviewers of the journals.