Dr. Aftab Ahmed

Dr. Aftab Ahmed (he/him/his)

Associate Professor, Research Faculty and Core Laboratory Manager
School of Pharmacy
Expertise: Proteins & Peptides; Purification and Characterization; Amino Acid Sequencing; Plant Proteomics;
Office Location: Rinker Health Science Campus Bldg. 9501 #206
Phone: 714-516-5465
Education:
University of Karachi, Bachelor of Science
University of Karachi, Master of Science
University of Karachi, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Aftab Ahmed earned his Ph.D. degree in protein chemistry from HEJ Research Institute of Chemistry, University of Karachi, Pakistan in 1989. He completed a part of his Ph.D. thesis at the Department of Protein Chemistry, Max-Plank Institute of Biochemistry, Munich, Germany. After graduation, he rejoined Max-Planck Institute in 1988 as a postdoctoral fellow and continued his research work on the primary structure of Carnivore hemoglobin. He joined National Cancer Institute (NCI), Frederick, Maryland as a postdoctoral fellow in 1989 and worked on the characterization of retroviral proteins from HTLV-1 and BLV retroviruses. He joined as postgraduate researcher to work on the characterization of human fibrinogen at University of California Irvine 1992, and later established a Biomedical Sequencing and Synthesis Core Facility. He also worked on peptide synthesis at Harbor UCLA Medical Center. Ahmed also has industrial experience, working in biotechnology companies. He joined as a protein chemist at CytoTherapeutics Inc., Lincoln, Rhode Island in 1996. Later he joined as a Staff Scientist, Biochemistry R&D in a tissue engineering company, Organogenesis Inc, Canton, Massachusetts in 1998. Ahmed moved to academia and joined as a Coordinator and established a multi-million dollar Centralized Research Core Facility at the University of Rhode Island (URI) in June 2003, supported through IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence Program, NIH. He became a Research Assistant professor at URI in May 2008 and is involved in teaching graduate and undergraduate courses at URI. He also participates in undergraduate network institutions in the RI-INBRE program. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at the International Center for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi, Pakistan. He is conducting collaborative research projects related to bioactive proteins and peptides from various spices used as folk medicine in Pakistan, as well as the characterization of hemoglobin from snake Leaf-Nosed Viper. Dr. Ahmed has authored 24 peer-reviewed publications and 15 meeting abstracts.

Research Interests

Dr. Ahmed’s research interests include protein purification, characterization, and amino acid sequencing. (1) Primary structure of hemoglobin to understand inter-species relationship at molecular level. (2) Proteins and peptides profiling of plants based in folk medicine from Pakistan. He is an author of 24 peer-reviewed publications, and 15 meeting abstracts.

Recent Creative, Scholarly Work and Publications

Tanveer, F., A. Ilyas, B. Syed, Z. Hashim, A. Ahmed, Z. Zarina. 2023. Differential protein Expression in Response to Varlitinib Treatment in Oral Cancer Cell Line: an In Vitro Therapeutic Approach. Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology.
Aldakhil, T., S.O. Alshammari, B. Siraj, B.Al-Aarag, S. Zarina, D. Salehi, A. Ahmed. 2023. The structural characterization and bioactivity assessment of nonspecific lipid transfer protein 1 (nsLTP1) from caraway (Carum carvi) seeds. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies (2023) 23:254.
Siddiqui H, A Tul-Wahab, A. Ahmed, M I Choudhary. (2023) Structural and Functional Analysis of Urease Accessory Protein E from Vancomycin-resistance Staphylococcus aureus MU50 strain. Protein Peptide Letter. Aug 2023.
Mushtaq M, S Usmani, A Jabeen, M Nur-e-Alam, S. Ahmed, A Ahmed, Zaheer Ul-Haq. (2023). Identification of potent anti-immunogenic agents through virtual screening, 3D-QSAR studies, and in vitro experiments. Molecular Diversity August 2023.
Haneef, K., Salim, A., Hashim, Z., Ilyas, A., Syed, B., Ahmed, A., Zarina, S. 2023. Chemical hypoxic preconditioning improves survival and proliferation of mesenchymal stem cells. Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology, September 2023.
Fazal, Yumna., M. Zohaib, B., Syed, S.H. Ansari, Z. Hashim, A. Ahmed, S. Zarina. 2022. Prenatal diagnosis of maternal serum from mothers carrying thalassemic fetus. Pediatrics International 64,e14999
Saud O. Alshammari, T. Aldakhil, Q.A. Alshammari, D. Salehi, A. Ahmed. 2022. Cytotoxic Activity of Non-specific Lipid Transfer Protein (nsLTP1) from Ajwain (Trachyspermum ammi) Seeds. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies (2022) 22:135.
Syed, N., A. Ilyas, B. Syed, A. Ahmed, S. Zarina, Z. Hashim. 2022. Novel Synergistic Combination of Pamidronate and Temozolomide for Breast Cancer Therapeutics. (E-Pub Ahead of Print) Current Cancer Drug Targets 13 October 2022.
Usman, M., A. Ilyas, B. Syed, Z. Hashim, A. Ahmed , S. Zarina. Serum HSP90-Alpha and Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: A Prospective Biomarker. Protein Peptide Letters 2021 Jun 16 (2021) (E-pub Abstract Ahead of Print)
Khurshid, Y., B. Syed, B, S.U. Simjee, O. Beg, A. Ahmed. Antiproliferative and apoptotic effects of proteins from black seeds (Nigella sativa) on human breast MCF-7 cancer cell line. BMC Complementary. Med. Therapies. 20, 5:1-11 (2020)
Megeressa, M., B. Siraj, S. Zarina, A. Ahmed. Structural Characterization and in vitro Lipid Binding Studies of Nonspecific Lipid Transfer Protein 1 (nsLTP1) from Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) Seeds. Scientific Reports-Nature. 10: 21243 (2020).
Meshal, N., H. Waheed, S. Y. Ali, M. Iqbal Choudhary, Z. Ul-Haq, A. Ahmed. Purification and Characterization of a Nonspecific Lipid Transfer Protein 1 (nsLTP1) from Ajwain (Trachyspermum ammi) seeds. Scientific Reports-Nature. 9:4148 (2019).
Waheed, H., S.K.Doman, A. Ahmed. Partial Amino Acid Sequence of Leaf-nosed Viper (Eristicophis macmahonii) Snake Hemoglobin. J. Animal & Plant. Sci. 28(6) (2018)
Munir, I., S. Ajmal, M.R. Shah, A. Ahmed, A. Hameed and S.A. Ali. Protein drug nano-conjugates: Finding the alternative proteins as drug carrier. Int. J. Biol. Macromolecules. 101: 131-145 (2017).
Waheed, H., H. Freedman, S.F. Moin, S. Zarina and A. Ahmed. The primary structure of ßI chains of hemoglobin from snake Sindhi krait (Bungarus sindanus sindanus). Protein J. 35: 193-201(2016).
Atta, A.; Amber, A.; Hashim, Z.; Ahmed, A.; Zarina, S. Lactate Dehydrogenase like crystalline: A potential protective shield for Indian spiny-tailed lizard (Uromastix hardwickii) lens against environmental stress. Protein J. 2014, 33:128- 134.
Yao, L.; Danniels, S.J.; Moshnikova, A.; Kunznetsov, S.; Ahmed, A.; Engelman, D.M.; Reshetnyak, Y.K.; Andreev, O.A. pHLIP peptide targets nano-gold particles to tumors. PNAS, 2013, 110 (2) 465-470.
Kalkunte, S.; Neubeck, S.; Norris, W.E.; Cheng, S.; Kostadinov, S.; Hoang, D.V.; Ahmed, A.; Von Eggeling, F.; Shaikh, Z.; Padbury, J.F.; Berg, G.; Markert, U.; Sharma, S. Transthyretin Is Dysregulated in Preeclampsia, and its native form prevents the onset of disease in a preclinical Mouse model. The American J. Pathology 2013, 183(5): 1425-1436
Guo, L.; Panderi, I.; Yan, D.D.;Szulak, K.; Li, Y.; Chen, Y.; Ma, H.; Niesen, D.B.; Seeram, N.; Ahmed, A.; Yan, B.; Pantazatos, D.; Lu, W. A comparative study of hollow copper sulfide nanoparticles and hollow gold nanospheres on degradability and toxicity. ACS Nano 2013, 7(10):8780-8793.
Musharraf, S.G.; Muhammad, S.; Siddiqui, A.J.; Haq, N.; Ahmed, A. Quantitative analysis of some important metals and metalloids in tobacco products by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Journal Chemistry Central Journal 2012, 6 (1), 56-68.

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