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Biography
I am a microbiologist and currently holding the dual position of Scientist & Coordinator IDD laboratories, Infectious Diseases Division at icddr,b. I have been leading the zoonotic viral discovery group in icddr,b. I have diverse expertise in molecular ecology, microbial culture and genotyping and working in these fields for more than 15 years. My research interests include molecular ecology and genetics of respiratory pathogens, especially nipah virus, influenza virus, other respiratory viruses and zoonotic viruses. Currently, I am involved in 7 different projects on virology as a PI and Co-PI, leading laboratory activities and supervising researchers working in molecular assays, tissue culture, and serology. I have been the lab lead for Nipah virus genotyping in Bangladesh. I have been working with EcoHealth Alliance and Drs. Epstein and Islam since 2010 on large, multifaceted Nipah studies and have experience with a project of this size and complexity. I am the country lab coordinator for the USAID PREDICT project in Bangladesh. In addition, I contributed to the diagnosis of hundreds of pathogens in Pneumonia Etiology Research in Child Health (PERCH) and Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance (CHAMPS) programs. As a laboratory scientist, one of my goals was to develop, install and establish new methods and cutting edge technologies.
Positions and Employment
2000-2001 Graduate Research Assistantship, Dept. of Microbiology, University of Dhaka (2000-2001).
2001-2003 Research Officer, Environmental Microbiology laboratory, icddr,b.
2003-2009 PhD Research Fellow, NUFU, Norway (Grant No. 2007/10063 & PRP 52/03).
2006 Research Assistant, Institute for Biology, UiB, Norway (One month).
2007 Visiting Scientist Pasteur Institute, Paris (One month).
2007 Visiting Research Student, TU Freiberg, Germany (One month).
2009-2010 Research Investigator. Virology laboratory, icddr,b.
2010-2012 Senior Research Investigator. Virology laboratory, icddr,b.
2013-14 Assistant Scientist, Virology laboratory, icddr,b.
2014-2018 Associate Scientist, Virology laboratory, icddr,b
2018-present Coordinator IDD laboratories, Infectious Diseases Division, icddr,b
2019-present Scientist, Virology laboratory, icddr,b
Activities
Employment (1)
