Dr. Rizwan Ahmed

Advisor

advisor@uspllab.com

CURRENT POSITION

Research Scientist

Department of Pathology
Johns Hopkins Medical Center
724 Rutland Ave, 664G Ross Building, Baltimore MD 21287

Education

Post Doctoral Research Fellow: Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD Research Fellow, 2015 - Present Ph. D.: Council of Scientific and Industrial Research-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India Junior Research Fellow: Central Drug Research Institute (CSIR-CDRI), Lucknow, India

Research ACTIVITIES

  • Ahmed R, Omidian Z, Giwa A, Cornwell B, Majety N, Bell DR, Lee S, Zhang H, Michels A, Desiderio S, Sadegh-Nasseri S, Rabb H, Gritsch S, Suva ML, Cahan P, Zhou R, Jie C, Donner T, Hamad ARA. A Public BCR Present in a Unique Dual-Receptor-Expressing Lymphocyte from Type 1 Diabetes Patients Encodes a Potent T Cell Autoantigen. Cell. 2019;177(6):1583-99 e16.
  • Giwa A, Ahmed R, Omidian Z, Majety N, Karakus KE, Omer SM, Donner T, Hamad ARA. Current understandings of the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes: Genetics to environment. World Journal of Diabetes. 2019; 11(1): 13-25.
  • Ahmed R, Omidian Z, Donner T, Hamad ARA. Hiding in plain sight: time to unlock autoimmune clues in huma CD5+ B cells by using nextgen technology. Discov Medicine. (2018); 26(142):79-83.
  • Ahmed R, Omidian Z, Giwa A, Donner T. Hamad ARA. “IL-17 and limits of success.” Cellular Immunology (2018). 10.1016/j.cellimm.2018.09.001.
  • Giwa A, Ahmed R, Donner T, Yagita H, Hamad ARA. “Editorial: Ying and Yang Members of the Tumor Necrosis Factor Superfamily: Friends or Foes in Immune-Mediated Diseases and Cancer.” Frontiers in Immunology 8 (2017): 1584. PMC.
  • Fousteri G, Ippolito E, Ahmed R, Hamad ARA. Beta-cell Specific Autoantibodies: Are they Just an Indicator of Type 1 Diabetes? Curr Diabetes Rev. (2017); 13(3):322-329.
  • Hamad AR, Ahmed R, Donner T, Fousteri G. B cell targeted immunotherapy for type 1 diabetes: can we make it work? Discov Medicine. (2016); 21(115):213-9.
  • Ahmed R, Jain SK, Shukla PK. In-silico characterization of β-(1,3)-endoglucanase (ENGL1) from Aspergillus fumigatus by homology modeling and docking studies. Bioinformation. (2013); 9, 802-807.
  • Kumar A, Ahmed R, Singh PK, Shukla PK. Identification of virulence factors and diagnostic markers using immunosecretome of Aspergillus fumigatus, Journal of Proteomics. (2011); 74, 1104-1112. doi: 10.1016/j.jprot.2011.04.004.

ORGANIZATIONAL ACTIVITIES

Professional Societies

2015 - Present Member, The American Association of Immunologists

2019 - Present Editorial Member, Journal of Dialysis and transplantation open access

2019 - Reviewer, Journal of Proteome Research

Other Experience and Membership:

2019 Poster judge: Judge Poster for graduate student at GSA symposium, Johns Hopkins

University, USA.

2019 Poster judge: Judge Poster for graduate student at Postdoctoral retreat symposium,

Johns Hopkins University, USA.

2019 Poster judge: Judge Poster session for Jennifer Aumiller, Director Pre and

Postdoctoral Career development, Maryland University, USA.

Conference Organizer, Session Chair

2008-2009 Organized and conducted Science Awareness Programme for school children at CDRI, India

2009 Conducted Science Quiz competition organized on National Day at C.D.R.I, India

2013 Part of the Management of hosting the 5th International Symposium on “CTDDR: Drug

Development for Orphan/Neglected Diseases”, Central Drug Research Institute, India,

2013 Participant as an organizing committee Member for conducting workshop on Proteomics and

Mass spectrometry, Central Drug Research Institute, India

RECOGNITION

Awards, Honors

  • 2020 Prestigious “Paul Ehrlich Award” Young Investigator Award Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD for exceptional Research discovery. https://hopkinsyidp.org/people/rizwan-ahmed/
  • 2020 Travel award for invited guest speaker for talk entitled “Role of X cell-secreted mAb (xmAb) in the pathogenesis of T1D” at nPOD-12th-Annual scientific meeting, Florida, U.S.A. https://www.jdrfnpod.org/event_speaker/rizwan-ahmed-phd/
  • 2020 Travel award and Invited guest speaker for talk entitled “Role of X cell-secreted mAb (xmAb) in the pathogenesis of T1D” at American Society of Immunologist-Annual scientific meeting, Miami, U.S.A.
  • 2019 Young Investigator Award: “Excellent Research work” selected as first place in Basic Science category, Johns Hopkins Department of Pathology, Baltimore, MD. https://pathology.jhu.edu/department/Research/pyid/PYID2019Awards.cfm
  • 2017 Young Investigator Award: “Excellent Research work” in Basic Science category, Johns Hopkins Department of Pathology, Baltimore, MD. https://pathology.jhu.edu/department/Research/pyid/PYID2017Awards.cfm
  • 2011 Appreciation Award by CSIR-CDRI for doing “Excellent Research work” resulting in publication of Research article in the Journal of Proteomics, New Delhi, India
  • 2009 - 2012 Senior Research Fellowship, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi, India
  • 2007 Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) with 99.7 percentile (All India Rank: 44) qualified
  • 2007 - 2009 Junior Research Fellowship, Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi, India
  • 2005 - 2007 Scholarship from Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of science and technology government of India

Grants

  • 2020-2021 Received Research Grant being as a PI from Diabetes Research Connection foundation that gives early-career scientists the opportunity to perform innovative type 1 diabetes Research in the broad areas of cure and care, including complications. https://diabetesResearchconnection.org/cause/new-approach-disrupting-onset-t1d/

Invited Talks

    • 2020 Guest Speaker, “Role of X cell-secreted mAb (xmAb) in the pathogenesis of T1D”, nPOD-12th- Annual scientific meeting, Florida, U.S.A.
    • 2019 Guest Speaker, “Discovery of a new lymphocyte that challenges current dogma in autoimmunity”, CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow, India
    • 2019 Guest Speaker, “A public BCR Present in a unique dual receptor expressing lymphocyte from type 1 Diabetes patients encodes a potent T cell autoantigen”, National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, India
    • 2019 Guest Speaker, “Discovery of a new lymphocyte that challenges current dogma in autoimmunity”, Jamia Hamdard University, New Delhi, India

    SKILLS/TECHNIQUES

    • Flowcytometry Based Applications:
      • Flow sorting with FACS ARIA and Moflo XDP
      • BD FACS Calibur, Attune-next, BD FACS Aria III, LSR-II, Cyan, FACS-Canto, Moflo-XDP
      • Analysis software: Flowjo, Cell quest, Diva, Summit, and Kaluza
    • Imaging Flow cytometry: AMNIS-Image stream, EVOS live cell imaging.
    • Molecular Biology and cloning techniques:
      • Cloning of Immunoglobulin’s and TCR from single sorted cells and their expression
      • siRNA mediated gene silencing
      • Primer designing using oligo software, reverse transcriptase PCR, SDS PAGE, RNA, DNA isolation
      • Immunohistochemistry: Preparation of paraffin sections and cryosections, haematoxylin and
      • eosin staining and immunostaining. Antigen retrieval techniques.
    • Animal Cell Cultures: Experience in handling various animal cell cultures, like: Primary lymphocyte, 293A, Macrophages, Fibroblast, Cancer, Sp2O and Hybridoma cell lines. Experience in handling various cell lines, human T cell line-jurkat, mouse monocyte-THP, Fibroblast like synoviocytes (FLS), keratinocyte, endothelial cell line etc. Cell culture based assay designing and experimentation. Handling long time culture and cell line maintenance, EBV transfection of human B cells, Hybridoma technology for making Immunoglobulins.
    • Animal Models:
      • T1D (NOD mice), transgenic mice with CRE/LOX system, gld mice, etc
      • Animal breeding, handling, dissection
      • Isolation of lymphocytes from organs and lymph nodes
    • Microbiological Techniques: Handling and maintenance of various pathogenic bacterial and fungal isolates
    • Proteomic Tools:
      • Isoelectric focusing, 2D-Gel electrophoresis, In-gel digestion, MALDI-TOF-TOF, Peptide Mass Fingerprinting data analysis, Mascot analysis, Database searches etc.
    • Protein/Enzymes
      • Enzyme extraction, purification and assay development, Enzyme specific activity, Enzyme kinetics, Protein over expression
    • Chromatography: Gel filtration, Ion exchange, Hydrophobic and Affinity Chromatography
    • Isotopic labelling (C13 &N15): of over expressed proteins for NMR structure
    • Electrophoresis: SDS, Native and Gradient SDS-PAGE; Colloidal Coomassie, Silver staining
    • Immunological Techniques
      • Monoclonal Antibody generation using Hybridoma technique
      • Evaluation of MAbs as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool (in-vitro / in-vivo), Polyclonal antibody generation, ELISA, Competition ELISA, ELISPOT, Western blotting, Immunoprecipitation, Immunodiffusion, Immunofluorescence, Cytokine estimation
    • Biophysical Techniques
      • Isothermal Titration Calorymetry (ITC), Circular Dichroism (CD), Differential Scanning Calorymetry (DSC), Fluorescence spectrometry
    • Analytical Techniques
      • Phase contrast microscope (vertical and inverted), Fluorescense microscopy, Flow cytometry (FACS) analysis, Spectrometry
    • Antimicrobial Drug Screening
      • Experimental induction of antifungal drug resistance, In-vitro and in-vivo (in mice) screening of antifungal and antibacterial (Synthetic/Natural) compounds, MIC assay, IC50 evaluation, Viability assay, Cell toxicity assays, Microbiological staining techniques and Maintenance of cultures
    • Servers & Software Proficiency
      • Bioinformatics tool’s: PDB, SwissProt, Entrez database, ExPASy, I-TESSER server, Procheck, Psipred, Protein homology modeling, DS modeling, Docking, BLAST, Sequence alignments, Public domain software’s such as SignalP, TargetP, Rasmol, Tree view, Pymol for structure analysis
      • Statistical software’s: Sigma plot 11, OriginPro 8, Prism
      • Computer software’s: Proficient in Window 2007, XP, Vista and data processing softwares such as MS office (Word, Power point, Excel), Endnote 2, HTML coding
      • Image analysis and enhancement software’s: Adobe Photoshop, Chem Draw
    • Languages Spoken: English, Hindi