• Virology
• Coronaviruses
• Viral phylogenetics
• Viral evolution
• Bioinformatics
• Viral discovery
• Viral meta-transcriptomics
• Viral protein structure prediction
• Trans-dominant negative proteins
• SARS-CoV-2 infectivity
• Gateway cloning
• Directed evolution
• Random mutagenesis and library preparation
• Viral survivability and assay development

Publications:

Coronaviruses Redefined: New Genomes, Conserved Domains, Phylogeny and Ecology; Nature Microbiology, January 2025

Rijal, R.; Ismail, I.; Jing, S.; Gomer, R.H. Starvation Induces Extracellular Accumulation of Polyphosphate in Dictyostelium discoideum to Inhibit Macropinocytosis, Phagocytosis, and Exocytosis. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24, 5923. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms24065923

Rahman RJ, Rijal R, Jing S, Chen T, Ismail I, Gomer RH.2023.Polyphosphate uses mTOR, pyrophosphate, and Rho GTPase components to potentiate bacterial survival in Dictyostelium . mBio14:e01939-23.https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01939-23

Presentations:

“Redefining Coronaviruses”; SPRC; College Station; Jan 25, 2025; Oral and poster presentation

“Developing trans-dominant negative SARS-CoV-2 proteins”; BioGSA; College Station; Feb 7, 2025; Oral presentation