Amjad is a PhD student interested in the population and comparative genomics of microsporidia and their insect host interactions. More broadly, he is interested in parasite-host interactions, and endosymbiosis in insects.

Amjad became interested in insect-parasite interactions during his work in the Plant Sciences Department (University of Cambridge). He studied how Cucumber Mosaic Virus (CMV) affected aphid behaviour to increase its spread within a plant population. At the Sanger Institute, he first investigated various decontamination approaches employed by the Darwin Tree of Life (DToL) project on complex sequencing samples from the Aquatic Symbiosis Project (ASG) in order to optimise detection of various cobionts and potential endosymbionts. Amjad is currently working on surveying various UK BIOSCAN insects and Anopheles samples for microsporidia presence.

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