About Me
I am currently working as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Institute of Plant Science (IPV), Faculty of Biological Sciences (BIOVIT), Norwegian University of Life Science (NMBU), Ås, Norway, in which I am a part of a project entitled ‘Environmentally friendly fungal disease management in protected crop production using plant genetic resources and sensor technology (END-IT)’. My role in this research, aims to understand the optically induced resistance/tolerance to biotic stress (powdery mildew-gray mold) and abiotic stress (selective wavelengths of optical radiation) in strawberry accessions and to identify the genomic regions of DNA damage due to UV exposure in Botrytis cinerea. It further applies in development of a pipeline to identify the possible DNA damage locations in other organisms.
Prior to my current position, I was working as a Research Assistant/Associate and later as Postdoc in Plant-Microbe Interaction Lab, Department of Biology, United Arab Emirates University (UAEU). I was involved in multiple microorganism-plant-environment interaction projects. The major works which I was involved includes: -To enhance the salinity tolerance of plants using endophytic actinobacteria residing in UAE; -PhD and prior research focussed on the understanding of transcriptomic levels of Arabidopsis in response to different biotic, abiotic, and hormonal stresses and in particularly the pathogen of interest: Botrytis cinerea a necrotrophic pathogen; -Identification and control of mango and date palm fungal infections etc. During this period, apart from plant molecular biology and microbiology, I have mastered various tools and algorithms for NGS-Microarray data analysis, RNA-Seq, metagenomics and have experience in transcriptome analysis. These are reflected as different roles in a total of nineteen publications in peer reviewed journals.
My research interests comprise of understanding more about the plant-microbe interactions in terms of the genetic and molecular approaches and to implement my expertise to explore more in the field.
July 2021 - Present
Postdoctoral Fellow
Institute of Plant Sciences (IPV), Faculty of Biological Sciences (BIOVIT), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Ås, Norway.
Project: “Environmentally friendly fungal disease management in protected crop production using plant genetic resources and sensor technology (END-IT)”.
Key role: Understanding optically induced resistance/tolerance to biotic stress (powdery mildew-gray mold) and abiotic stress (selective wavelengths of optical radiation) in tomato and strawberry. Identifying the genomic regions of DNA damage due to UV exposure in Botrytis cinerea. Developing a pipeline to identify the possible DNA damage locations in other organisms.
Additional role: Assisting PhD student in the experiments, maintaining lab routines.
June 2020 - June 2021
Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE.
Project: “Enhancing Salinity Tolerance in Plants by Endophytic Actinobacteria Residing in the United Arab Emirates”.
Key role: To improve salt tolerance of crops by lowering the endogenous levels of ET using ACCD-producing endophytic actinobacteria native to the UAE environments. To generate transgenic Arabidopsis lines expressing ACCD gene from the endophytic actinobacteria and assess salinity tolerance. To use high saline underground irrigation water for field irrigation by commercially producing seeds impregnated with ACCD-producing actinobacteria.
Additional role: Lab in-charge, maintaining the lab routines, and teaching/training graduate and undergraduate students in plant-microbial and molecular biology experiments.
April 2017 to March 2020
Research Associate
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE.
Project: “Identification and Characterization of the Black Scorch Disease on Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera) in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi”.
Key Role: Performing the molecular techniques in identification and characterization of the fungal pathogen Thielaviopsis punctulata and maintaining its culture. Identification of chemical control of the fungal pathogen.
August 2016 to April 2020
PhD Scholar
Cellular & Molecular Biology, College of Science, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE.
Thesis: “Expression Profiling and Mutant Analysis Reveals Complex Regulatory Networks Involved in Arabidopsis Response to Biotic, Abiotic and Hormonal Stresses”.
Key Role: Analyzing the Arabidopsis transcriptomic data to identify the overlapping stress-regulated genes in response to Botrytis cinerea and other biotic (Alternaria brassicicola, Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato DC3000 and DC3000 avrRpm1, and Peris rapae), abiotic (oxidative stress and wounding) and hormonal (salicylic acid, methyl jasmonate, ethylene and abscisic acid) stresses.
Additional Role: Student Representative, Occupational Health and Safety Committee 2017-2018; Leader, Indian Student Club UAEU 2018-2020.
March 2012 to April 2017
Research Assistant
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE.
Project: “Genetic Control of Plant Responses to Botrytis cinerea”.
Key Role: Identification of resistant/susceptible genes in response to Botrytis cinerea and to perform functional analysis on Arabidopsis.
Additional Role: Lab in-charge, maintaining the lab routines, and supervising and training graduate and undergraduate students in their research projects.
March 2011 to March 2012
Research Assistant
Project: “Genomic Tool Development and Full Genome Sequencing of Date Palm Variety Nagal”.
Department of Aridland Agriculture, Faculty of Food and Agriculture, United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, UAE.
Education
What I’ve Learned
My Skills
What I Do
Biotechnology
Microarray/RNASeq Analysis, Transcriptomics, Plant Disease, Biocontrol Assay, Gene Expression Study, PCR (Gradient & Real Time), Plant Tissue Culture, Microbial Culture, Other DNA & RNA Molecular Biology Techniques, Transmission Electron Microscopy etc...
Bioinformatics
R Packages (Transcriptome and Genome Analysis Pipelines), Affymetrix Expression Console, Network Analyzer, Sequence Analysis. Genevestigator, Clustal W, Clustal X, GenScan, TOMTOM, MEME Suit, NJTree, MAST, MCAST.
Other Computational Skills
Scripting Languages: PERL, MATLAB (Basic), HTML.
Programming: C, C++, VB
Additional Merits/Skills
Supervised and assisted in the academic research project of 6 graduate students (Master of Science) and 8 undergraduate students (Bachelor of Science). Key role involves teaching/training students in experiments, helps and support the students to design the experimental workflow etc.
Networks and Memberships
Secretary, Society of Doctoral Candidates at NMBU (SoDoC)
February 2023 - present
Society of Doctoral Candidates at NMBU (SoDoC) is a free and non-political interest organization for PhD candidates and postdocs at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
Member, Forskerforbundet
November 2022 - Present
The Norwegian Association of Researchers – NAR), Norway.
Member, Youth in Science Committee
November 2021 - Present
Mohammed bin Rashid Academy of Scientists (MBRAS), Dubai, UAE
The Mohammed bin Rashid Academy of Scientists is the primary body representing the UAE's science community. Composed of the UAE’s top researchers from several institutions in the country, with expertise in the fields of natural sciences, engineering & technology and health and medical sciences.
Research Publications
Year: 2021; Frontiers in Marine Science 8:715123. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2021.715123
Khaled A. El-Tarabily, Arjun Sham, Alaa A. Elbadawi, Amira H. Hassan, Bashaer K. K. Alhosani, Mohamed A. El-Esawi, Abdulmajeed S. AlKhajeh and Synan F. AbuQamar
Year: 2021; Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2328, Book: Modeling Transcriptional Regulation pp 1–11. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1534-8_1
Synan F. AbuQamar, Khaled A. El-Tarabily and Arjun Sham
Year: 2020; International Journal of Molecular Sciences 21(3), 1033: doi: 10.3390/ijms21031033.
Seham M. Al Raish, Esam Eldin Saeed, Arjun Sham, Khulood Alblooshi, Khaled A. El-Tarabily and Synan F. AbuQamar
Year: 2019; Scientific Reports 9:17010. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-53694-1
Arjun Sham, Hibatullah Al-Ashram, Kenna Whitley, Rabah Iratni, Khaled A. El-Tarabily and Synan F. AbuQamar
Year: 2019; Frontiers in Microbiology 10:1694. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.01694.
Khaled A. El-Tarabily, Abdulmajeed S. Alkhajeh, Mutamed M. Ayyash, Latifa H. Alnuaimi, Arjun Sham, Khaled Z. ElBaghdady, Saeed Tariq and Synan F. AbuQamar
Year: 2019; International Journal of Molecular Sciences 20(4), 923; doi: 10.3390/ijms20040923.
Khawla J. Alwahshi, Esam E. Saeed, Arjun Sham, Aisha A. Alblooshi, Marwa A. Alblooshi, Khaled A. El-Tarabily and Synan F. AbuQamar
Year: 2019; IEEE Access 7: 45841-45849. doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2908061.
Mousa I. Hussein, Dwija Jithin, Indu J. Rajmohan, Arjun Sham, Esam E. Saeed and Synan F. AbuQamar
Year: 2018; Plant Physiology and Biochemistry. doi: 10.1016/j.plaphy.2018.03.028.
Zakira Naureen, Arjun Sham, Hibatullah Al Ashram, Syed A. Gilani, Salma Al Gheilani, Fazal Mabood, Javid Hussain, Ahmed Al Harrasi and Synan F. AbuQamar
Year: 2017; International Journal of Molecular Sciences 18, 2086; doi:10.3390/ijms18102086.
Esam E. Saeed, Arjun Sham, Ayah AbuZarqa, Khawla A. Al Shurafa, Tahra S. Al Naqbi, Rabah Iratni, Khaled El-Tarabily and Synan F. AbuQamar
Year: 2017; Frontiers in Microbiology 8:1455.
Esam E. Saeed, Arjun Sham, Zeinab Salmin, Yasmeen Abdelmowla, Rabah Iratni, Khaled El-Tarabily and Synan AbuQamar
Year: 2017; PLoS ONE 12(2): e0172343. doi: 10.1371/ journal. pone.0172343.
Arjun Sham, Khaled Moustafa, Shamma Al-Shamisi, Sofyan Alyan, Rabah Iratni, Synan AbuQamar
Year: 2016; Plant Disease 100:2370-2376.
Esam E. Saeed, Arjun Sham, Khaled El-Tarabily, Firas Abu Elsamen, Rabah Iratni, Synan AbuQamar
Year: 2015; PLoS ONE 10(5): doi: 10.1371 /journal. pone.0125666.
Arjun Sham, Khaled Moustafa, Salma Al-Ameri, Ahmed Al-Azzawi, Rabah Iratni, Synan AbuQamar
Year: 2014; PLoS ONE 9(11): e113718.doi: 10.137/journal.pone. 0113718.
Arjun Sham, Ahmed Al-Assawi, Salma Al-Ameri, Bassam Al-Mahmoud, Falah Awad, Ahmed Al-Rawashdeh, Rabah Iratni, Synan AbuQamar
Year: 2013; Journal of Inclusion Phenomena and Macrocyclic Chemistry, Springer Publications. doi 10.1007/s10847-013-0352-8.
Na’il Saleh, Suad M. Ajeb, Arjun Sham and Synan F. AbuQumar
Year: 2013; Molecular Plant Pathology 14(6). doi: 10.1111/mpp.12049.
Synan AbuQumar, Suad M. Ajeb, Arjun Sham, Mohamed Rizq Enan and Rabah Iratni
Year: 2013; Plant Knowledge Journal 2(1):8-19.
Mohammed A.M. Aly and Arjun Sham
Year: 2012; Australian Journal of Crop Science 6(8): 1236-1244.
Sakina Khanam, Arjun Sham, Jeffrey L. Bennetzen and Mohammed A.M. Aly
Year: 2012; International Journal of Plant Research 2(3): 80-89.
Arjun Sham and Mohammed A.M. Aly
Let’s Connect
I’d love to hear from you.
Arjun Sham,
Gamle Mossevei 10
Ås, PO 1433
Norway.