Professional Experiences

Postdoctoral research associate (September 2018 – December 2021)

Department of Pathology, Immunology, and Laboratory Medicine, University of Florida, FL 32603.

Advisor: Timothy J. Garrett, Ph.D. (https://pathology.ufl.edu/profile/garrett-timothy/) 

From 2018 to 2021: My research efforts contributed to 20 peer-reviewed manuscripts where 11 were first/co-first authored including, 1 co-corresponding authored.

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

• Uncovered niclosamide role in SARS-CoV-2 infected cells by lowering ether lipid (Garrett, Coatsworth, Mahmud et al., Front. Microbiol. 2023, PMID: 37901834; Mahmud & Garrett, JASMS, 2020, PMID: 32880453)

• Obesity-dependent chemerin mechanisms to drive kidney cancer and antibody-based therapy development (Tan & Mahmud et al., Cancer Discovery, 2023, PMID: 33757970)

• Discovered the utilization of leucine to produce lipid droplets via autophagy by cancer cells under acidic conditions (Pillai & Mahmud et al., Cell Reports, 2022, PMID: 35545051)

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

• Multiomics tool for childhood malnutrition (Mahmud et al., Analytical Chemistry, 2019, PMID: 31682425)

• Integrated RNA and metabolites for prostate cancer screening and mechanism study (Lee & Mahmud et al., Scientific Reports, 2020, PMID: 32111915)

• Integrated multiomics for children medulloblastoma biomarkers such as RNA, metabolites, and lipids (Lee & Mahmud et al., Acta Neuropathol Commun. 2022, PMID: 35209946), oncogenic circular RNA circ_63706 (Katsushima, Pokhrel, Mahmud et al., Acta Neuropathol Commun. 2023, PMID: 36899402), and tumor suppressor miRNA-211 (Yuan & Mahmud et al., Acta Neuropathol Commun. 2023, PMID: 38115140) 

3) Designed, conducted, and significantly contributed to multiomics projects to discover biomarkers and their diagnostic tools in human diseases. Examples include:

• Segmented flow mass spectrometry (SF-MS) for small molecule identification and cancer differentiation (Mahmud & Pinto et al., Journal of Proteome Research, 2020, PMID: 32216312)

• Paper spray ionization mass spectrometry (PSI-MS) for small molecule identification and cancer differentiation (Mahmud & Pinto et al., Analytical Chemistry, 2021, PMID: 34043339)

• Data modeling algorithms to diagnose cancer (Mahmud & Pinto et al., Analytical Chemistry, 2021, PMID: 35060703)

• Managed and mentored 1 full-time research technician and 2 graduate students

• Published 20 conference abstracts, including 10 poster presentations and 5 oral presentations

• Directly participated in 5 grant applications and 8 postdoctoral fellowships, where I secured 4 fellowships

• Developed state-of-the-art skills related to multiomics, including genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics experimental research design and data analysis.

4) I learned and served in numerous teaching and leadership training programs including:

• Demonstration of mutliomics techniques such as metabolomics and lipidomics to visitors, graduate students, and high school scholars

• Completed a week-long training on LEADERSHIP IN ACTION in Biomedical Research organized by the University of Florida College of Medicine (June 2019)

• Acquired “Preparing Future Faculty” certification from the Center of Teaching Excellence at the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL (Spring 2020).

• Taught a graduate class in the UF college of medicine core course (GMS6001) in Fall 2018 & 2019, focusing on an introduction to big data for Biomedical Research (3-week mini-course)

• Taught metabolomics summer (2019) and winter school (2020) workshops organized by the Southeast Center for Integrated Metabolomics (SECIM) at UF

• Organized metabolomics journal clubs at the Garrett lab and SECIM during my postdoc

PhD research assistant (August 2014 – August 2018)

Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, University of Florida, FL 32603.

Advisor: Daiqing Liao, Ph.D. (https://physiology.med.ufl.edu/profile/liao-daiqing/)

From 2014 to 2018: My research efforts contributed to 6 peer-reviewed manuscripts where 4 were first authored. 

1. Designed, conducted, and significantly contributed to multiomics projects to discover biomarkers, signaling mechanisms, and novel therapeutics. Examples include: 

• Skilled with High-Pressure Liquid Chromatography coupled High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (UHPLC-HRMS)- based metabolomics/lipidomics (Mahmud et al., Analytical & Bioanalytical Chemistry, 2017, PMID: 28844081)

• Discovered novel role of DAXX in de novo lipogenesis of triple negative breast and other cancer (Mahmud et al., Nature Communications, 2023)

• Discovered DAXX as an oncogene in 18 human cancers (Mahmud et al., Nucleic acid Res, 2019)

Invented SIM2 peptide for cancer therapeutic (Mahmud et al., Nature Communications, 2023)

• Evaluation of chemotherapeutic agent in luminal and her2 type breast cancers (Waddell & Mahmud et al., Cancers, 2021, PMID: 34199844)

• Learned and reported gene expression data analysis pipeline (Mahmud & Liao, Genomics data, 2015, PMID: 26217556) 

2. Developed skills on cell and molecular biology techniques such as: 

• Cell culture, RNA/DNA isolation and quality evaluation

• PCR and Real-time PCR (TaqMan, SybrGreen I, and Roche UPL technologies)

• Protein isolation; Western blotting; Gel electrophoresis

• Expression cloning and Northern blotting

• Cell culture; Sanger sequencing and sequence analysis; ELISA

• Cell proliferation, invasion, and migration assays; 3D colony formation assay 

• Immunoprecipitation, ChIP qPCR; primer design; shRNA; CRISPR

• Flow cytometry for cell death analysis; Microscope/Fluorescent microscope; Nano-drop; Qubit; Agilent Bio-analyzer; Metal sonication. 

3. Developed skills on in vivo animal studies

• Highly skilled in mouse breeding, direct tumor cell injection into mouse mammary fat pad and subcutaneous areas 

• Skilled in xenografting and mouse drug treatment or other intervention study. 

• Skilled in multi-organ collection including direct blood draw by cardiac puncture, gonadal fat, white fat, muscle, bone marrow, mesenteric lymph node, brain, pancreas, spleen, liver, intestine, etc. 

4. Developed skills on computational biology and bioinformatics research

• Skilled with next-generation sequencing and sequencing data such as RNA-seq, ATCA-seq, ChIP-seq, and Single-cell sequencing data collection, mining, and analysis from TCGA, CCLE, CPTAC, Metabolomics Workbench, and NCBI GEO (Mahmud et al., Nature Comm, 2023; Mahmud et al., Nucleic acid Res, 2019; Mahmud et al., Genomics data, 2015; Ahmed et al., Cancers, 2023; Vijayakurup et al., JCI Insights, 2022; Waddell & Mahmud et al., Cancers, 2021; Masannat et al., Scientific reports, 2018)

Department of Biology/Chemistry, Claflin University, Orangeburg, SC

Duration: August, 2012 - May, 2014

Mentor: Kamal Chowdhury, PhD 

             Arezue Boroujerdi, PhD

From 2012 to 2014: My research efforts contributed to 4 peer-reviewed manuscripts where 4 were first authored.

• Trained extensively in NMR metabolomics and published four first-author papers on NMR-metabolomics (Mahmud et al., Journal of Agriculture & Food Chem, 2015; Mahmud et al., In vitro cellular and developmental biology-Plant, 2015; Mahmud et al., Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry, 2014; Mahmud et al., Plant Tissue Cult. & Biotech. 2014)

• Trained with Metabolomics software including Bruker TopSpin, Chenomix, MNOVA, MetaboAnalyst, and MMCD database

•  Skilled in nontargeted and targeted NMR-metabolomics using 700 MHz magnet

• Mentored 2 undergraduate students

• Worked as a teaching assistant for Genetics course and Plant Biotechnology laboratory

• Worked as a Biology and Biochemistry tutor at the Student Support Service (SSS)

• Worked as an NMR technology Research fellow