Dr. Ashfaqul Muid Khandaker received his PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics from the Izmir Institute of Technology Turkey in the field of Mitochondrial metabolism and cell aging in 2016. Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) awarded him a research fellowship at that time. After successful completion of the PhD project, Dr. Muid has been a faculty member at the University of Dhaka since 2017 where he is currently an Associate Professor at the branch of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Department of Zoology.

During his PhD research, he applied contemporary biochemical and molecular genetic techniques to study the roles of mitochondria in metabolism and cellular aging. He specifically focused on retrograde signaling and biomarkers of aging including, mitochondrial morphology, mtDNA content, TCA cycle activity, Reactive Oxygen Species levels, Cytoplasmic pH, and global gene expression levels. To perform these experiments, Dr. Muid made use of state-of-the-art wet-lab techniques like confocal microscopy, enzymatic bioassays, qPCR, flow cytometry, GFP reporter assays, advanced gateway cloning, and DNA microarray. The work is published in the journal Gene entitled ‘Characterization of long-living yeast deletion mutants that lack mitochondrial metabolism genes DSS1, PPA2, and AFG3’ (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31082499/).

Currently, Dr. Muid is focusing his research on three different wings, namely cell aging, mitochondrial Biology/disease, and dengue genomics & Aedes control at the Genetics and Molecular Biology Branch and the Burgen laboratory of the department. He is about to establish a sophisticated GATEWAY cloning technology in the laboratory for biotech/therapeutic applications. He is currently supervising five MS students relevant to the research wings.

Dr. Muid published his research in the impact journals such as BBRC (ELSEVIER), Gene (ELSEVIER), Gene Reports (ELSEVIER), Microbial Bioactives (E-MAN, Australia), Basic and Applied Zoology (Springer Nature), etc. He also participated in and orally presented his works at national and international conferences. In recent years he has achieved projects from Dhaka University, UGC, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and BANBEIS under the Ministry of Education. He has become a scientific member of SMYTE (Small Meeting on Yeast Genetics, transports, and Energetics), the Molecular Biology Association of Turkey, and the Zoological Society of Bangladesh. At present, he is playing an editorial (board member) role in the journal Microbial Bioactives (EMAN research-Australia).

For more details about his research please visit the website: https://sites.google.com/view/muidresearchgroup