areeb jawed

Graduate Trainee Apr 2016 - Jun 2016

Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine

This research fellowship was at Centre for Chemical Biology and Therapeutics (CCBT) at InStem, India. The project was in its initial drug discovery phase and involved screening for small molecules which would potentially inhibit protein-protein interactions, specifically BRCA1-BACH1 to prevent DNA damage repair of tumour cells post chemotherapy. The promising hits were crystallized and subjected to various cell-based assays.

I primarily worked with the high-throughput screening group, establishing and optimizing assays for Micro-Scale Thermophoresis (MST) and Amplified Luminescence Polarization Homogeneous Assay (ALPHA) screen.

University of Essex 2014 - 2015

Field of study: Biotechnology
Degree: Master of Science

Research project:

Measuring the hydrocarbon degradation capacity of Thalassolituus oleivorans and identification of the genes involved

The aim of this project was to determine and characterize the hydrocarbon degrading capabilities of HCB Thalassolituus oleivorans, via identification of the genes vital for oil-degradation. HCB’s play a major role in degradation of marine oil spills and with the advent of synthetic biology, it is possible to increase the rate of degradation helping in the clean-up of the pollutants. The project involved genomic analysis to identify genes responsible, designing of qPCR primers, designing of experiments for substrate-strain correlation, quantification of bacterial growth and measurement of substrate biodegradation by GC/MS technique, mRNA extraction from promising substrates, reverse transcription and measuring the expression of up-regulated genes corresponding to substrate specific oxygenases by qPCR.

Courses Taken:

• Gene Technology and Synthetic Biology
• Genomics (including Bioinformatics tools, namely, MEGA, Mauve, IGV amongst others)
• Industrial Biotechnology: Enzymes, Bio-chemicals and Biomaterials
• Molecular Medicine and Biotechnology
• New Business Venture and Entrepreneurship
• Professional Skills in Biotechnology
• Protein Technologies

VIT University 2010 - 2014

Field of study: Biotechnology
Degree: Bachelors of Engineering

Research Project:

“Identification of lead compound for the treatment of leprosy using computational biology”

Due to continuous mutations, the Mycobacterium leprae (causative agent of leprosy) develops resistance to drugs. The project involved identifying a compound, to which M. leprae is not resistant, and which has the same or higher biological activity as Minocycline and Rifapentine (used in the treatment of leprosy). Bioavailability and toxicity screening was performed. The target identification, modelling and molecular docking procedures were done by using various web-based bioinformatics tools.