Zaid Alghrair

Honorary research fellow Jun 2018 -

School of Biological Sciences, University of Liverpool

Research work focused on the understanding of the attachment sites for influenza virus, thereafter selecting a specific peptide based drug to target theses binding sites and make a competition with the virus and then remove the virus and block the virus attachment which is the first step in the viral replication cycle. It also include finishing my two papers yielded by PhD thesis and there is scope for a third, which is what i will be working on in the coming year in the field of anti ‘flu peptide functionalised nanoparticles. Many techniques involved such as, SDS-PAGE, Western blot, protein purification techniques, nanoparticles preparation and tissue culture techniques and viral assays.

University of Liverpool 2014 - 2018

Field of study: life science
Degree: PhD

 PhD in pharmaceutical microbiology nanotechnology                 1st May 2014-24-5-2018                                                                                 

The University of Liverpool, Advisors: Prof David G Fernig, Dr Bahram Ebrahimi.

The aims of the project are:

Inhibition of influenza virus infection by (gold and silver nanoparticles) functionalised with peptide based drug (FluPep) regardless the virus species.
Study  the electronic properties of gold and silver nanoparticles like surface plasmone resonance 
To identify the mechanism of FluPep antiviral activity.
To establish if a polyvalent FluPep is more effective.
To design a more potent FluPep.
Study the interaction between nanoparticles-Flupep conjugates with MDCK cells
 

To achieve these aims the following will be done:

Functionalise and purify gold nanoparticles with FluPep previously shown to harbour strong anti-flu activity.
Assess their chemical properties, e.g. DTT ligand exchange test to measure stability.
Test anti-flu peptide activity of peptide alone in virus assays (plaque reduction assay) and compare its efficacy against nanoparticles with FluPep

Measure the interaction of nanoparticles – FluPep with cells by photothermal microscopy.
Identify molecular species the FluPep binds on cells and which are likely to mediate its antiviral activity.
Test the interaction of nanoparticles FluPep with virus detected by RT.and PCR.
 

Laboratory skills acquired:

·         Passivation and functionalisation of gold and silver nanoparticles

·         Purification of peptide-nanoparticles conjugate with different chromatography columns ( G25, Phenyl Sepharose, HIC, DEAE, CM Sepharose, Nickel Sepharose and Heparin agarose.

·         Virus propagation and purification

·         Virus replication assays

·         A lot of  In-vitro mammalian cellular assays include; cell culture, subculturing, splitting, cells counting, cells freezing and transfection.

·         Influenza virus plaque assay

·         UV-Vis spectroscopy

·         SDS-PAGE and western blot

·         Protein purification

Research Related Modules

Training received during PhD at The University of Liverpool

·         Bioinformatics

·         Advanced Statistics for Biological Research, SPSS and R Studio.

·         Experimental design

·         Research Methods and Applications

·         Advanced Research Skills