Molalegne Bitew Aserese

Currently, I am working at Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute (EBTI) as director and senior researcher for health biotechnology directorate which is aimed at researching on Isolation, identification and molecular characterization of pathogenic microorganisms, development of vaccines, diagnostics and pharmaceutics for animal and human pathogenic infections. Right now, I am heading the COVID-19 testing lab in our institute and testing 400 samples a day and 40,000 till to date. I am also working as Associate Professor of Virology and Vaccinology at Pan African University for Life and Earth sciences (PAULESI), University of Ibadan, Nigeria and different universities in Ethiopia (Addis Ababa University, Jimma University and University of Gondor). I supervised total of 21 M.Sc (8 PAULESI) and 5 Ph.D students. I was also working at National Veterinary Institute (NVI) of Ethiopia for 1 year on development of different viral and bacterial animal vaccines (IBD, MDV, fowl cholera, LSD and PPR). I won many national and international research grants and awards.

I have very good practical and theoretical background in cell culture techniques, excellent ability in measuring of the immune response (cellular and humoral), having very good knowledge in most of microbiology and biotechnology techniques, bioinformatics and computational biology, ability of utilizing different research equipment (conventional PCR and qRT-PCR amplifications, LAMP, FACS machine, cloning and sequencing (sanger and NGS), protein expression techniques and good knowledge of BSL-2 and 3 laboratory, Laboratory quality management systems and so on. I have more than 14 years of work experience.

My research interest is on the isolation and identification of pathogenic microorganisms (Bacteria, Virus, and Fungus) which affect the health of human and animals in one health approach in collaboration with different national and international research and academic institutes with ultimate goals of vaccine development. I am interested on molecular detection and characterization based on sequencing of specific genes or whole genome sequencing with the NGS. There are also strong research interest on molecular epidemiology and phylogenetic analysis of pathogenic organisms with the application of recent computational technologies and then development of vaccines and anti-microbial against the isolated and identified local pathogens. There are also active research works going on to develop diagnostic tools for the early detection of the different diseases. There is also interest and project to work on AMR by developing bacteriophages as bacteriophage therapy.