Immunology and Infectious Diseases

Mai Mohammed Al-Ghanem has completed her PhD at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. She works as a Biological Researcher in the Biotechnology Department (Agriculture research) at the Ministry of Municipality and Environment in Doha, Qatar. Her background includes Marine Microbiology and Molecular Biology.

Modern medicine relies heavily on antibiotics to combat bacterial infections. Antibiotic resistance is a serious threat to humanity and a challenge to modern medicine. The development of new antimicrobials is urgently needed before the current antibiotics used become compromised by antibiotic resistance. Microbial species of natural environments are a rich source of novel compounds and secondary metabolites with unique bioactive properties and an excellent ground for investigation for future drug discovery and the expansion of the pharmaceutical pipeline.