"Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and think what nobody has thought"

Albert Szent-Györgyi

People

Dr. Ehsan Pourkarimi D

Principle investigator

Assistant Professor in Genomics and Precision Medicine

Dr. Ehsan Pourkarimi, did his undergraduate study at ELTE university in Budapest, Hungary. After receiving a Cancer Research UK fellowship, he moved to the United Kingdom. He joined the Lab of Prof. Anton Gartner in the Wellcome Trust Center for Gene Regulation and Expression at the University of Dundee. During his Ph.D., Dr. Pourkarimi characterized the key components of the core apoptosis machinery in C. elegans and challenged the well-accepted model of apoptosis induction. Focused on chromatin biology, his post-doctoral research delved into the effect of chromatin modifiers in cellular response during acute stress conditions. Using the SILAC-based proteomics approach, Dr. Pourkarimi demonstrated the significance of Histone H3.3 variants in aging and also during acute starvation. As a Research Associate in the Lab of Dr. Iestyn Whitehouse at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, Dr. Pourkarimi studied DNA replication.

Using C. elegans embryos, he mapped DNA replication origins, creating the first comprehensive map of DNA replication from a multicellular organism. In 2020 he moved to Qatar as principal investigator and assistant professor in Genomics and Precision Medicine (GPM) and established his research lab in Qatar. His Lab uses cutting-edge technology such as epigenome editing to tackle the fundamental question in chromatin biology, from DNA damage response to understanding the mechanism of epigenetic memory.

Mahmoud Izadi

PhD Student

Mahmoud did his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Shiraz and Tabriz university in Iran. Upon his graduation and working a few years as a research assistant at Royan institute, he joined our Lab in 2020 to pursue his Ph.D. studies in Genomics and Precision Medicine. His current Ph.D. project is to identify novel players of DNA damage response in C. elegans. He also models various human disease-causing mutations in the model system to understand their biological relevance in human health and diseases.

Raheleh Vazehan

PhD Student

Raheleh completed her BSc in Cellular and Molecular Biology-Genetics at the Tehran Azad University and received her MSc in Genetics of Human Disease from University College London (UCL). She has worked as a clinical NGS data analyst at a clinical genetics laboratory, and she is currently doing her PhD in Genomics and Precision Medicine at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). Raheleh has recently joined Pourkarimi lab, and she will be employing mass spectrometry-based proteomics to study the DNA damage‐induced changes in protein interactions, protein abundance, and post-transcriptional modifications in C. elegans.

Tayyiba Akbar Ali

PhD Student

Tayyiba did her BSc. at Qatar University, then worked as a research assistant for two years in the molecular pathophysiology lab at Hamad medical corporation. In 2019, she got into Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU) to pursue her degree in Genomics and Precision Medicine and joined Pourkarimi’s lab. Her MSc. work defined a novel translational role of aminoacyl tRNA synthetases (AaRSs). She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. studies in our lab, continuing her research on AaRSs and DNA damage Response.

Farah Shurrab

MSc Student

Farah received her BSc. In biological sciences from Qatar University in 2018. After graduating, she worked as a research assistant in the college of medicine in QU. Later, Farah worked in the Biomedical Research Center (BRC) where she participated in different research projects related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, Farah is pursuing her master's degree in Genomics and Precision Medicine at Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU). She joined Pourkarimi research group, where she will be investigating the role of histone modification in DNA damage repair and genotoxic insult induced apoptosis in C.elegans.

Raghad Rabie El Ghali

MSc Student

Raghad obtained her BSc in Biology with distinction from the American University of Beirut in 2022. Currently, she is pursuing her MSc in Genomics and Precision Medicine at Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU). Raghad recently joined Pourkarimi lab, where she aims to uncover the roles of novel DNA damage response proteins using C. elegans as a model system. She is also interested in using C. elegans to investigate the action of genotoxic cancer drugs on cells in vivo.

Alanoud Saif A A Al-Kaabi

Maryam Muthanna Qaid Al-mansoob

Msc Student

Alanoud completed her bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Qatar University. After graduation, she joined the anti-doping Laboratory as a lab scientist in the Doping Analysis Lab (DAL) in the biological group performing different immunological methods and mass spectrometry analysis. She is a Member of the Hematological module of the Qatar athlete profile management unit (APMU). Currently, she is pursuing her master’s degree in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Hamad bin Khalifa University. She recently joined Pourkarimi's lab, and her research project is to study the effects of genotoxic cancer drugs on cellular processes using C. elegans as a model system in collaboration with Hamad Medical Corporation (HMS). Also, she is characterizing the proteins associated with DNA damage repair mechanisms upon DNA damage response (DDR)

Maryam has completed her Bachelor of Biological Sciences from Qatar University with a minor in Chemistry. Maryam was also an intern at Weill Cornell Medicine. She is currently a master’s student of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at HBKU. She has recently joined Pourkarimi’s lab, where she is using a genomics approach to understand the role of WARS1 in the cell cycle. Maryam and her project is recognized with a prestigious Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) award.

Past Members

Dr. Abeer Jamal

Aya Nour

Visiting PhD Student

MSC Student

Aya received her Bsc. in biological sciences from Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q). She then worked as a research assistant in a medical and population genomics lab at Sidra Medical and Research Centre. Later, she pursued her master’s degree in Genomics and Precision Medicine at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU). She joined Pourkarimi lab, where her research work was focused on identifying novel players in DNA damage repair and apoptosis in C. elegans during her master's study.

Dr. Abeer is a Ph.D. student of the Genomics and Precision Medicine program at HBKU. She works at Dr. Nady and Dr. Ehsan's lab to pursue her P.hD. research project. Abeer is interested in using C.elegans as an animal model for studying aging-related human disorders. The first aging-related gene, associated with the genetic regulation of life span has been identified in C elegans. That made Abeer excited to join our lab to functionally characterize her candidate genes using our models' system. C.elegans has been frequently utilized as an ideal living system for aging studies due to their small body size, short lifespan, and homologs of about two-thirds of all human disease-causing genes. Currently, she is humanizing C. elegans to identify how the overexpression of her gene of interest can affect C.elegans lifespan. She leads a collaborative project with our lab and Nady's at HBKU.