Member’s Profile
Name: Noor Afiqah Ahmad Zain
Field: Biotechnology/Microbial Molecular Biology
Position/Level: MSc student
Research title: Identification and characterization of novel polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthases from a limestone soil bacterium, Jeongeupia sp. USM3
Biography:
Afiqah is a postgraduate student pursuing her Master’s degree in science under supervision of Prof. Dr. K. Sudesh Kumar at School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in applied science majoring in biotechnology back in 2016 from the same school. She carried out her final year’s project on construction of several recombinant strains and PHA biosynthesis in Ecobiomaterial Research Laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Dr. K. Sudesh Kumar back in 2015. Since then, her main research interest is to characterize PHA synthase (PhaC) which is the key enzyme involves in biosynthesizing PHA. She believes that the potential to discover natural PhaCs remain largely unexploited. Thus, it is still worthwhile to identify PhaC with high enzymatic activity and unique substrate specificity from natural environment. She has successfully identified and characterized two PhaCs of a limestone soil bacterium, Jeongeupia sp. USM3. She has gained a lot of knowledges and research skills during her study.
Name: Noor Afiqah Ahmad Zain
Field: Biotechnology/Microbial Molecular Biology
Position/Level: MSc student
Research title: Identification and characterization of novel polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) synthases from a limestone soil bacterium, Jeongeupia sp. USM3
Biography:
Afiqah is a postgraduate student pursuing her Master’s degree in science under supervision of Prof. Dr. K. Sudesh Kumar at School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in applied science majoring in biotechnology back in 2016 from the same school. She carried out her final year’s project on construction of several recombinant strains and PHA biosynthesis in Ecobiomaterial Research Laboratory under the supervision of Prof. Dr. K. Sudesh Kumar back in 2015. Since then, her main research interest is to characterize PHA synthase (PhaC) which is the key enzyme involves in biosynthesizing PHA. She believes that the potential to discover natural PhaCs remain largely unexploited. Thus, it is still worthwhile to identify PhaC with high enzymatic activity and unique substrate specificity from natural environment. She has successfully identified and characterized two PhaCs of a limestone soil bacterium, Jeongeupia sp. USM3. She has gained a lot of knowledges and research skills during her study.
