This time Scientific Bangladesh interviewed Dr. M A Wadud khan. He is a post-Doctoral Researcher at the University
of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has shared his story and many important insights. Here is what he says
1. Scientific Bangladesh: Would you like to tell us about your academic and research life? In another way, how would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: I did my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the Department of Microbiology at the University of Dhaka. Following the completion of a second Master’s degree in Biological Sciences at Eastern Illinois University, I pursued my PhD in Quantitative Biology from the University of Texas at Arlington. As a postdoctoral trainee at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, my research interests lie within exploring host-microbe interactions in the context of cancer development and treatment, and how these interactions impact the success of therapeutic responses to anti-cancer immunotherapies.
2.Scientific Bangladesh: What has made you a researcher and/or a teacher? In another way, what is the story behind your becoming a researcher?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: Becoming a researcher has been part of my future goals when I started off my Bachelor’s in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Dhaka. Before then, I had lots of dreams with no specific focus. It was fascinating to have come to know that how the tiniest little creatures, i.e., microbes, could impact every aspect of our life, and that how they can be manipulated to make them useful in medicine, industry through research. My career interests became more apparent to me, which led me towards becoming a researcher and taking research as my profession.
3.Scientific Bangladesh: How do you manage funds for research? From where you get funds for research?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: Our research projects are funded from the National Institute of Health, State, and institutional sources. Currently, I myself have no funding under my belt for research.
4. Scientific Bangladesh: Do you think Bangladeshi researchers apply enough for international funds?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: My knowledge about this is very limited. But we have ample scopes and opportunities for researches that obviously warrant funding from national and international sources. I personally know many researchers in Bangladesh who have secured international grants and have been successfully doing research on the needs of our country. To my knowledge, Dr. Md. Anwar Hossain, Professor, Department of Microbiology, University of Dhaka, and Vice-Chancellor of Jashore University of Science and Technology is a great example. He was my thesis supervisor of the Master’s program, and encouragement and huge support for obtaining my doctorate degree in the United States. With several national and international grants, he is heading a lab and doing researches in applied microbiology including vaccine development by employing a myriad of cutting-edge technologies of molecular and computation biology. Our other faculty members in the Department of Microbiology also routinely apply for national and international grants and some of them have been successful.
5. Scientific Bangladesh: Inadequate fund for research is a major problem in Bangladesh. What would you say in response to pointing fingers by many to this basic problem worldwide, not only in Bangladesh?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: Every government has a budget for education. While the USA spends 6.2% of its GDP on education, Bangladesh spends only about 2% on the same. If we spend more money on education and research, it would draw more scholars into research, and subsequently, we would produce more high-quality outputs that would substantially help us improve the quality of our life in Bangladesh as we see in developed countries.
6.Scientific Bangladesh: What is your research area? What type of research facilities/ infrastructures you have or developed over years and how?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: My research background has provided me with a solid foundation in studying large microbiome data sets generated from high throughput sequencing systems. I leverage my training in in-silico characterization of the microbiome to study microbial physiology in the gut ecosystem, and also in pre-clinical mouse experiments to elucidate the mechanisms behind host-microbe interactions. As a postdoctoral researcher, I study the association between the gut microbiome, lifestyle factors, and therapeutic response to anti-cancer immunotherapies. As a follow-up to these projects, I am now working on optimal donor selection for fecal microbiota transplant (FMT) by characterizing the gut microbiome of complete responder patients to anti-cancer immunotherapies and healthy individuals. While fecal samples from complete responders are currently being studied as FMT products in several clinical trials aiming to augment the response to immunotherapies, the availability of FMT products from specific cancer patients is considerably constrained, in comparison to FMT products from healthy donors. The potential efficacy of these FMT products, however, is difficult to predict. I am currently endeavoring to explore this possibility in the preclinical mouse model. Due to my expertise in the microbiome field, I am able to develop strong collaborations within and beyond our institute and helped several investigators answer critical questions pertaining to the microbiome that includes a clinical trial (NCT03353402).
7. Scientific Bangladesh: Tell us about your publications and patent, if any. Tell more about your most loved publication/s and/or patents.
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: I do not have any patents but have several publications in reputed journals including Science from my Master’s, PhD, and postdoctoral researches. My most loved publication is from one of my PhD dissertation chapters. While my postdoctoral work has been on the gut microbiome, my PhD research was on studying the impact of deforestation on the microbiome in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest soil. The title of my paper is “Deforestation impacts network co-occurrence patterns of microbial communities in Amazon soils”. Also, a recent paper on tumor microbiome across cancer types, which is recently published in Science, is my favorite. The title of my paper is “The human tumor microbiome is composed of tumor type-specific intracellular bacteria”.
8. Scientific Bangladesh: Do you have any research that has been commercialized? What should Bangladesh do to encourage commercialization of research outputs?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: I do not have any research that has been commercialized, and I feel I am not qualified enough yet to advocate in answering the second half of the question. However, I can anticipate as a microbiologist that there is a huge opportunity in the commercialization of microbial products including bioethanol, antibiotics, biofertilizers, etc.
9. Scientific Bangladesh: Would you like to share your google scholar, LinkedIn, or any other profile?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=54OxDYEAAAAJ&hl=en LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/md-abdul-wadud-khan-1969494a/
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Md_Khan68
10. Scientific Bangladesh: Tells us about research grants and awards you have obtained till now.
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: I have got some research grants at institutional-level, not any at State and Federal levels. I have got several awards including the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC, 2019), Graduate Teaching Assistantships (2012-16), Gordon Research Conference (GRC) Travel award (2015), Oral presentation Award from Illinois State Academy of Science (2011), Poster Award (1st place) in Microbiology division at Illinois State Academy of Science (2010), Dean’s Honors Award, the University of Dhaka for academic excellence in Bachelor’s degree (2009).
11. Scientific Bangladesh: How important are the experience of working as a journal editor and peer-reviewer? How is your experience in those cases?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: I never served as a journal editor but have reviewed manuscripts from four different journals. It is very important as this justifies my values in the research field I work into. Moreover, it helps me to know in advance what others in similar areas are working on.
12. Scientific Bangladesh: How many researchers (PhDs and Masters) have you developed by this time? In other words, share your supervising story.
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: I have not served as a supervisor or advisor at PhD and Master’s levels. But I helped at least five graduate students develop their projects and troubleshoot. It has always been a great experience working with them as learning is not a one-way road.
13. Scientific Bangladesh: What 1. qualities and 2. skills you expect in prospective researchers?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: Researchers must have passions and to be dedicated to research. Work ethics and honesty are very important. Perseverance and leadership qualities are key to my own research projects. The ability to maintain professional relationships with the principal investigator (PI) and lab members are also integral qualities to have in prospective researchers. Communication skills, both oral and written, are fundamental in disseminating scientific discoveries to our peers as well as the public to advance science and gain public favor for continued support. To be a good communicator, prospective researchers have to be a good listener as well.
14.Scientific Bangladesh: What are the professional organizations of researchers you involved with? How important it is for researchers to join such professional bodies?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: I am a member of the American Society for Microbiology (2011-present), Society for Melanoma Research (2019-present), Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (2019- present), Illinois State Academy of Science (2009-2011) among others. The best part of these professional bodies is to meet with peers annually. We can discuss with them both professionally and non-professionally that give the opportunity to make networks, to exchange ideas, to obtain information for professional development, etc. This also provides us with an opportunity to meet lab members, PIs in-person to know more about their personality, ongoing and unpublished data in the form of oral and poster presentations. In addition, this gives an opportunity to introduce us to a bigger platform.
15.Scientific Bangladesh: Do you think different professional bodies of scientists playing their due role in Bangladesh? What are your suggestions for the leading professional organizations of scientists?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: I honestly do not know enough or qualified enough to answer this question.
16. Scientific Bangladesh: How important is leadership ability to become a great researcher? Should researchers take leadership training? Did you ever get training on Leadership?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: It is very important to have leadership qualities to become a great researcher. If I want to be the principal investigator of a project, I must have the leadership quality to lead the project, listen to the ideas from lab members, and share my ideas with them. I do not know whether there is a formal training to be a leader in research. But it develops as we own the project, lead the project, and learn from others including skills for writing manuscripts and grants. I personally believe that we should get training in writing that is mostly ignored. If I am leading more important research but not a good writer in writing grant proposals, then I may not receive grants to run the project. In contrast, the chances of receiving grants would be higher if the principal investigator is a better grant writer.
17. Scientific Bangladesh: If asked what will be your three suggestions for the Science Ministry of Bangladesh?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: I would ask:
1) to allocate more money on education and research; 2) to make funds available to build new labs and support existing labs in universities, hospitals, and other institutes to promote researches seeking to improve the quality of life in Bangladesh; 3) to take initiatives to bring the research scholars residing outside back to Bangladesh.
18. Scientific Bangladesh? Would you like to add any more points for our readers?
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: There are so many talented scholars who originated from Bangladesh. Many of them left the country to pursue a PhD, a postdoc in world-renowned universities. The majority of them remain overseas and holds high positions in academia and industry. A small fraction of them returns, and most of them hold academic positions in Bangladesh and are trying their best to advance research in their respective fields within scopes. They are so well qualified but embrace limitations in resources. Bangladesh is now a middle-income country and has fulfilled the criteria to be listed as one of the UN’s Least Developed Countries (LDC) in 2018. Now it is time to concentrate more on solving our own problems rather than relying on other countries. Investing more in education will not only open new doors in research but also attract more scholars from overseas.
19. Scientific Bangladesh: Would you want to contribute regularly in Scientific Bangladesh and have a profile as an Author? If yes, then register at https://scientificbangladesh.com/registration-2/
Dr. M A Wadud Khan: I would be happy to contribute to any capacity at any time.
Scientific Bangladesh: Thank you Dr. Wadud for your time and valuable insights. Readers will be waiting for your regular writing in scientific Bangladesh.
N.B: if anyone wants to regularly write in Scientific Bangladesh, please register and ask for access as an author: https://scientificbangladesh.com/registration-2/