Nawsad Alam

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Nawsad is a postdoctoral research associate who is using structure-guided methods to develop effective immunotherapies against the blood-stage of the malaria parasite. Before joining us in February 2018, Nawsad studied for his Ph.D. in the group of Prof Ora Furman at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he developed computational tools for accurate modelling of peptide-protein interactions. He is now using Rosetta-based methods to design better vaccine immunogens.

Publications:

Kumar, S., Kolodkin-Gal, I., Vesper, O., Alam, N., Schueler-Furman, O., Moll, I., Engelberg-Kulka, H. (2016) Escherichia coli quorum sensing EDF, a peptide generated by novel multiple distinct mechanisms and regulated by trans-translation. MBio 7 1 

Alam, N., Schueler-Furman, O. (2016) Modelling Peptide-Protein Structure and Binding using Monte Carlo Sampling approaches: Rosetta FlexPepDock & FlexPepBind. Methods in Molecular Biology 1561139-169.

Alam, N., Zimmerman, L., Wolfson, N.A., Joseph, C.G., Fierke, C.A., Schueler-Furman, O. (2016) Structure-Based Identification of HDAC8 Non-histone Substrates. Structure 24 458-68

Alam, N., Goldstein, O., Xia, B., Porter, K.A., Kozakov, D., Schueler-Furman, O. (2017) High-resolution global peptide-protein docking using fragments-based PIPER-FlexPepDock. PLoS Computational Biology 13 12 e1005905

Porter, K.A., Xia, B., Beglov, D., Bohnuud, T., Alam, N., Schueler-Furman, O., Kozakov, D. (2017) ClusPro PeptiDock: Efficient global docking of peptide recognition motifs using FFT. Bioinformatics 15 33 3299-3301

Price, C., Merchant, M., Jones, S., Best, A., Von Dwingelo, J., Lawrenz, M.B., Alam, N., Schueler-Furman, O., Kwaik, Y.A. (2017) Host FIH-mediated asparaginyl hydroxylation of translocated Legionella pneumophila effectors. Front Cell Infect Microbiol7 54

Marcu, O., Dodson, E.J., Alam, N., Sperber, M., Kozakov, D., Lensink, M.F., Schueler-Furman, O. (2017) FlexPepDock lessons from CAPRI peptide protein rounds and suggested new criteria for assessment of model quality and utility. Proteins 85 445462

Hánová, I., Brynda, J., Houštecká, R., Alam, N., Sojka, D., Kopáček, P., Marešová, L., Vondrášek, J., Horn, M., Schueler-Furman, O., Mareš, M. (2018) Novel structural mechanism of allosteric regulation of aspartic peptidases via an evolutionarily conserved exosite. Cell chemical biology 25 318-329

Alam, N and Higgins, M.K. (2020) A spike with which to beat COVID-19. Nature Reviews Microbiology 18 414

Farrell, B., Alam, N., Hart, M.N., Jamwal, A., Ragotte, R.J., Walters-Morgan, H., Draper, S.J., Knuepfer, E. and Higgins, M.K. (2023) Structure of the PfRCR complex which bridges the malaria parasite and erythrocyte during invasion. Nature 625 578-584

Harrison, T.E.*, Alam, N.*, Farrell, B.*, Quinkert, D., Lias, A.M., King, L.D., Draper, S.J., Campeotto, I. and Higgins, M.K. (2024) Rational structure-guided design of a blood stage malaria vaccine immunogen presenting a single epitope from PfRH5. https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.02.29.582763 (* contributed equally)