Biography

Dr. Yousuf is a molecular microbiologist with a five years of postdoctoral research experience, including one year postdoc from Stellenbosch University, South Africa (2014-2015); two years Postdoc from Kyushu University, Japan (2016-2018) and two years postdoc from Canadian Blood Services, Canada (2020-2022). He has worked on diverse research projects from exploring soil microbiomes using metagenomics to studying lantibiotics as potential antimicrobials against drug resistant bacterial pathogens,  exploring gut clostridial communities towards disease prevention and health prevention, deciphering molecular mechanism of Staphylococcus aureus virulence in interaction with platelets. The PhD and postdoctoral research experience have enriched Basit with diverse technical skills in interdisciplinary research settings such as high throughput omics technologies- metagenomics, whole genome sequencing, RNA sequencing, metabolomics and analyzing the data using latest bioinformatics and statistics tools. He has also a rich experience in CRISPR/Cas9 based mutagenesis, Quantitative real-time PCR, ELISA, Western Blotting, Flow Cytometry, and chemical synthesis of peptides and modification based on GC-MS; LC-MS.

Basit currently holds a Research Associate position in Gut Microbiology lab at University of Ottawa. His current research is focused on cultivating gut microbiota under in vitro conditions and exploring their potential towards improving mental health and gut disorders employing CRISPR/Cas9 based mutagenesis, cell-culture and in vivo mice models.