Research Experience

I get this every so often. Am I a bio-logist or a bio-informatician? I’ll let you be the judge.

In retrospect, I have experience at the interface between biology and computation while residing in 4 continents of the world (3 more to go!). I am lucky to have worked in great research labs creating diagnostic biochips for detection of avian flu virus (NTU, Singapore), to optimizing microalgae growth for biodiesel production (UQ, Australia), to characterizing novel microbes responsible for global nutrient cycling (UQ, Australia), to exploring microbial communities in the hot/bright/salty Red Sea (KAUST, Saudi Arabia) and currently in the Girguis lab to unravel the diversity of electrogenic organisms for generating renewable energy (Harvard, US).

Thinking forward, these valuable experiences have molded my research interest which is to characterize novel organisms on Earth (and universe?) using multi-"omic" approaches (i.e., single-cell genomics, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, metabolomics). In simple terms, unraveling the functional capabilities of our unknown "friends and foes" by putting together pieces of puzzle to produce a complete picture.

I recently graduated (2015) from the Australian Centre for Ecogenomics, UQ, under the mentorship of Gene Tyson and Phil Hugenholtz. During my PhD, I used multi-"omic" techniques to discover the first microorganism (Methanoperedens nitroreducens) to carry out a previously unknown process anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) coupled to nitrate reduction without needing a partner (unlike AOM/SR) using the first complete reverse methanogenesis pathway (including the elusive mer gene). The widespread of this organism in many anoxic freshwater systems may have great implication to the global methane and nitrogen cycles, and ultimately climate change (Haroon et. al, 2013, Nature).

So what am I? I would like to think as both, a curious biologist using bleeding-edge computational methods to understand the intricacies of life.