I am a PhD student at UiT in Tromsø at the department of chemistry. I have a B.Sc and M.Sc in Biotechnology. During my Bachelor degree, I did two internships in molecular biology/microbiology. During my master at NTNU (2014-2016) I did participate to iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) where a novel glucose sensing system in Pseudomonas putida upon glucose detection (as a proof of concept) was engineered. For my master thesis, I studied the effect of Metformin, a diabetic drug on juvenile Atlantic salmon. My master thesis was entitled “Uptake, organ distribution and physiological effects of an anti-diabetic II drug (metformin) in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)”. Chemical analysis was performed in order to determine uptake, distribution in organ of the drug. I used different methods including Real-time RT-PCR for analyzing the transcript level of various genes, immunochemical analysis (western blot) to determine the functional level of the two key proteins in the steroidogenesis (StAR and P450scc) and spectrophotometric analysis for determining the enzyme activity of antioxidant enzymes.
During my PhD, I first studied the cod microbiome where I described the bacterial diversity in the gut of the migrating Atlantic cod (skrei). This was performed using shotgun sequencing and metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). I also constructed the functional profiling of the gut microbiome. This work has been published in the microbiome journal under the title “Closely-related Photobacterium strains comprise the majority of bacteria in the gut of migrating Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua)” and is available as an open access. Next, we are trying to mimic the conditions of the gut of Atlantic cod with both the transient bacteria (Allochthonous) and bacteria colonizing the mucus of the intestines (Autochthonous) in the lab. Mimicking the condition in the gut of Atlantic cod may allow to establish a model that can serve for further investigations (e.g. test of ATB, drugs, environmental pollutants) without or less animal’s experiments. And using the data from the study of the cod microbiome, we are aiming on utilizing the gut microbiome of Atlantic cod as a platform for the development/production of cold-active enzymes. I also collaborated with the Nova University of Lisboa and spent 3 months there in 2019 for learning about their work in producing bioplastics using bioreactors and rest raw material from the sea. During my exchange, I also taught them how to analyze their lab samples using bioinformatics. Thus, I have mainly expertise in molecular biology, microbiology, sequencing (Illumina) and bioinformatics. I also have some experience in protein expression and purification. I also got an award for the best presentation of a PhD project through abstract, flash presentation and poster presentation during the department day at the department of chemistry in 2018.
