I am an ‘EC’ postdoctoral fellow in Aftab Nadeem’s research group at the Department of Molecular Biology. My research focuses on bacterial adaptation in amoebae.
I received my Ph.D. in 2023 from Massey University, New Zealand. Under the supervision of Prof. Tim Cooper, I explored the evolutionary mechanisms in the laboratory that may shape the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes in bacteria outside the lab. Before my doctoral studies, I investigated the molecular evolution of essential genes in yeast in the laboratory of Prof. Jun-Yi Leu at Academia Sinica, Taiwan.
I joined Dr. Aftab Nadeem’s lab in 2024 to study the intracellular living and the adaptation of bacteria in amoebae. Predation of amoebae on bacteria can adversely select bacteria that resist the predation or even harm the predator. The resistance and pathogenicity of bacteria to amoebae are proposed to be the origin of the bacterial virulence in humans. In Umeå, I study the molecular/genetic basis underlying the bacterial resistance to amoebae and the bacterial adaptation to the intracellular living in amoebae.