Amal Bajaffer

About

Research Interests

Energy is required for all living organisms to perform significant functions such as making proteins, growth, and repair of tissues and cells. Recently, lactate has shown to be a highly important component in brain energy metabolism; in particular, learning and memory formation (cell, PNAS).  Interestingly, the ability to produce lactate is not restricted to animals but also microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi can release lactate through a biological process known as lactic acid fermentation. My research interest is to understand the evolutionary history of lactate- mediated neural plasticity genes in the brain. Bioinformatics analysis of genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic data, domains, and motif detection is conducted to examine genes involved in the lactated related neural plasticity. Also, I am using several bioinformatics tools to analyze the data. 

Education Profile

• Master of Science in Biology, University of Texas at San Antonio, 2014
• Bachelor of Science in Biology-Microbiology, King Abdul-Aziz University, 2008