Mahmoud became interested in plant biochemistry and biotechnology while working in his Master project on developing tolerance to drought and salinity in grapevine using genetic transformation approach at Centre of Biotechnology of Borj Cedria (CBBC). Next, he joined the laboratory of Prof. Bernard GALLOIS (Institute of Chemistry and Biology of Membranes and Nano-objects (CBMN) to crystallize and determine the structure of several enzymes, to establish activity assays and to investigate in details enzymatic properties the biosynthesis of Flavan-3 ols from grapevine at University of Bordeaux (France) where he earned his PhD in bioengineering in February 2010. Before he got his Assistant-professor position in 2014 in CBBC in Tunisia, he joined David Gang‘s lab (IBC/ institute of Biological Chemistry in Washington State University) as postdoctoral research associate where he builds a great expertise on system biology by developing analytical and computation tools to direct engineering new metabolic networks for the production of novel hydrocarbons required to meet commercial fuel standards in the framework of CABS project. At CBBC, he continued to work on the identification of the regulatory hubs that controls stress tolerance mechanisms of plant-microbes interaction subjected to several biotic and abiotic stresses until he got his promotion as Associate-professor in 2022. Mahmoud is leading several projects where he is looking to increase the understanding of stress tolerance mechanisms for promoting sustainable agriculture using local genetic resources and OMICs tools.

Mahmoud was awarded a 248,425 € grant by successfully submitting as "Experienced Researcher" the project proposal “MycUpscaling” (Upscaling in vitro arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi inoculum production via combinatorial lipid metabolic engineering of host plants), that was selected for funding by the European Commission within the call H2020-MSCA-IF-2020 of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions.

Coordinator of the MycUpscaling project, is a worldwide renowned expert in the fields of mycology and plant physiology. He is the head of the mycothèque of UCLouvain and of the Glomeromycota in vitro collection (GINCO). He pioneered techniques for the in vitro culture, collection and experimentation of AMF and has >120 peer-reviewed papers with >5400 citations (h-index=41) and has authored one book and twelve book chapters. Moreover, he is regular reviewer in approximately 20 international journals, a member of the scientific commissions of the Belgian funding agencies FNRS, FWO and CUD, of the French ANR, and a member of the management committees of the COST ACTION 838 and 870. He participated in 19 EU-funded projects in FP5, FP6, FP7 and Horizon 2020, coordinating 8 of them. This includes 5 MSCA ESR or ITN (2 as coordinator) and 2 IF (REMEDIAM and the ongoing SYMBIO-INC). He so far supervised 39 PhD dissertations (30 already completed) and over 80 Master theses. As coordinator of ESR and ITN projects, his lab organized a summer school for 40 participants and a winter school for 30 participants and within EMBARC (FP7-Infrastructure). He organized six trans-national trainings to researchers on in vitro culture of AMF. Moreover, Declerck's lab organizes the international training on in vitro culture of AMF since 2005, and has provided training to over 240 trainees from academia and industry, emphasizing its intersectoral outreach. He owns the patent WO/2009/090220: Method and system for in vitro mass production of AMF, which demonstrates the entrepreneurial potential of his lab.

is a leading expert in the field of plant lipid metabolism, including isotopic tracing of lipid flux analysis and elucidation of metabolic bottlenecks of engineered plant cells. His multidisciplinary research combines advances in genetics and molecular biology approaches (e.g. CRISPR) with in vitro and in vivo biochemical analysis of metabolic flux. He has published dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles in top plant science and biochemistry journals (e.g. PNAS, Plant Cell, Plant Physiology) with >4260 citations (h-index 20), and serves as PI to several research projects funded by the NSF, USDA and DOE. As Assistant Prof. he won awards for leading early career researcher from two scientific societies (International Symposium on Plant Lipids (2014) and Phytochemical Society of North America (2016). He is Associate Prof. and a core-faculty member of the Institute of Biological Chemistry (IBC), a member of the Molecular Plant Sciences Graduate Program, and a trainer for the NIH funded Protein Biotechnology graduate training program. Previous members of PB lab have gone onto positions in academia, government, and industry. He regularly reviews manuscripts for over 20 scientific journals, is on one editorial board, and regularly reviews for multiple funding agencies including, NSF, USDA, DOE, and ANR. Collaboration is a central part of Prof. Bates research and he regularly collaborates with researchers around the world including US, UK, France, Belgium, Sweden, and Australia.