Senior Research Scientist

Senior Research Scientist and Multiomics data Science team leader (July 2022 – Present)

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030.

Mentor: Rehan Akbani, PhD (https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=kyFJh1IAAAAJ&hl=en) 

From 2022 to present: My research efforts have contributed to over 30 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including preprints where 8 were first/co-first authored including, 2 co-corresponding authored.

1) Designed, conducted, and significantly contributed to multiomics projects to discover biomarkers, molecular mechanisms, and therapeutic targets in human diseases. Examples include:  

• Novel peptide metabolism in ovarian cancer (Mahmud et al., Nature Communications, 2025, PMID: 39905052)

• G protein–coupled receptors of the protumorigenic adipokine chemerin that are involved in ccRCC lipid metabolism (Wang & Mahmud et al., Cancer Res, 2024, PMID: 38640229)

• Lipidomic classification of ccRCC and chemerin monoclonal antibody sensitivity (Mahmud & Wang et al., Science Advances, 2025 (under review)

• SREBP2-driven cholesterol synthesis in both CHD1 loss and SPOP mutant prostate cancer (Chen et al., Nature Cancer, 2025, PMID: 40360905)

• Hepatic oxalate overproduction associated with steatohepatitis (Das et al., Nature Metabolism, 2024, PMID: 39333384).

• Tumor-resident Lactobacillus iners role in lactate production and chemoradiation resistance (Colbert et al., Cancer Cell, 2023, PMID: 37863066)

• High-fiber diet (HFD) intervention promoting immunotherapy response in patients with melanoma. Daniel et al., Science, adx6851, 2025 (under revision)

2) Designed, conducted, supervised, and significantly contributed multiomics project to dissect drug toxicity. Examples include:

• Single sample Multiomics to dissect asparaginase enzyme drug toxicity (Mahmud et al., Journal of Proteome Res, 2025, PMID: 40726195)

• Sex-based multiomics analysis of concurrent MASH and atherosclerosis in mice (Mahmud et al., Journal of Hepatology reports, 2025 in revision)

• Multi-organ Multiomics to dissect molecular mechanism and drug toxicity (Xiong et al., Nature Communications, 2025 in revision, PMID: 39386681)

• Inflammatory neuropathy in colorectal cancer (Gaffney, Casaril, & Mahmud et al., Nature Communications, 2025 in revision).

3) Designed, conducted, supervised, and significantly contributed Multiomics project to dissect lipid biochemistry landscape in cancer therapeutics. Examples include:

• Lipid ontology analysis (Gencel-Augusto et al., Cancer discovery 2023 and Li et al., JCI insight 2023; Chattopadhyay et al., British Journal of Cancer, 2024)

• Lipid class analysis (Chen et al., Nature Cancer, 2025; Gaffney et al., Nature Communications, 2024, under revision; Li et al., J. Lipid Res. 2024)

• PUFA and ferroptosis analysis (Li et al., JCI insight 2023; Freitas‑Cortez et al. Molecular Cancer, 2025; Lee et al., Nature Communications, 2024)

• Saturation/chain length assessment (Cortez et al. Molecular Cancer, 2025; Wang & Mahmud et al., Cancer Res 2024)

• Organelle (peroxisome, mitochondria, ER, adiposome, and Golgi body)-specific lipid alterations analysis (Li et al., Journal of Biological Chemistry 2024; Li et al., Journal of Lipid Res. 2024)

• Inflammatory lipidome analysis (Gaffney et al., Nature Communications 2025 under revision).

• Lipid oxidation analysis (Freitas‑Cortez et al. Molecular Cancer, 2025)

• Lipid involvement in cancer cell death mechanims such as ferroptosis (Lee et al., Nature Communications, 2024; Freitas‑Cortez et al. Molecular Cancer, 2025), Autophagy and apoptosis (Wang et al., Cancer Res. 2024)

4) Designed, conducted, and supervised projects to develop multiomics technologies to study disease mechanisms, biomarkers, diagnosis, and therapeutics. Examples include:

• Developed a system biology graphical notation (SBGN)-based next generation pathway network to visualize multiomics data (Mahmud et al., Nature Communications, 2025, PMID: 39905052; Kaw et al., Nature Communications, 2025, PMID: 40603847; Baek et al., Oncogene, 2023, PMID: 36813854)  

• Developed TARO to integrate microbiome-metabolite data and facilitate interpretation (Mishra & Mahmud et al., Bioinformatics, 2023, PMID: 37904958)

• xPEDITE: Multi-Omics Pipeline for Data Integration and Translational Exploration (Mahmud et al., in preparation for Nucleic acid Research, 2025.

5) Managed and mentored 4 full-time research technicians, 4 bioinformatics and software developers, 1 postdoc, 1 undergraduate scholar, and 1 high school research intern

6) Published 13 conference abstracts including 2 poster presentations and 2 invited talks

7) Directly participated in 4 grant writing efforts and applications

8) Developed cutting-edge skills related to multiomics experimental research design, data analysis, artificial intelligence (AI) tools, molecular biology, multi-organ animal studies, bioinformatics and computational biology