Ahmed Shibl
Postdoctoral Associate
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: PhD, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
Research Areas: Marine microbial ecology; Microbial interactions; Genomic adaptations; Metatranscriptomics; RNA-seq; Metabolomics; Phytoplankton-bacterial networks; Microbial oceanography; Bioinformatics; NGS Analysis; Single-cell genomics
Moving on from a Pharmaceutical Sciences background, Ahmed got involved in the Red Sea Marine Metagenomics project funded by KAUST in collaboration with AUC for his Master’s degree. During this period, he investigated the microbiology of the Red Sea with a focus on biotechnological applications of proteins expressed by halophilic microbes inhabiting the brine pools. At KAUST, his PhD revolved around isolating a novel Prochlorococcus strain from the main basin of the Red Sea and investigating the community structure and genomic adaptation of this strain. The research focused on distinct metabolic and stress response pathways for insights on how the cells cope with the Red Sea's relatively high salinity and temperature ranges. After his doctoral studies, Ahmed held a short postdoc position in Xelu Moran’s lab (KAUST) continuing his research on the metabolic responses of Prochlorococcus to experimental warming.
Following this, he settled briefly in Prague to study documentary filmmaking. From there, he moved to Liverpool (Ormskirk) as a visiting scholar to setup the Molecular Biology section of the Extremophiles Research Lab (Antunes Lab) in the newly inaugurated TechHub at Edge Hill University. Later that year, he joined NYUAD as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Amin Lab.