MA

Md.Shamim Akhter

Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute, Ehime University, Gazipur Agricultural University, Bangladesh Agricultural University

Research areas: Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Plant Science · Plant Virus Research Studies · Plant and Fungal Interactions Research · Phytoplasmas and Hemiptera pathogens

ORCID iD 0000-0003-1632-8783
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About

I am a plant scientist by profession, serving as a senior scientist (Plant Pathology) at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI). My research interest is plant antiviral immunity and molecular host-plant virus interactions (Akhter et al., Virol J (2021)18:176). Currently, I am conducting research at BARI in Plant Virology that includes immuno-nucleo based diagnosis and characterization of emerging plant viruses especially Tospovirus, Cucumovirus, and Potyvirus infecting vegetables and fruit crops in Bangladesh. My academic qualification includes MS in Plant Pathology (Serology and symptomatology of Papaya ringspot virus) from the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University, BSMRAU, and Ph.D in Molecular Plant Virology from the Ehime University, Japan (functional analysis and genome expression of Beet pseudoyellows virus) under the MEXT fellowship. I studied the genetic diversity of Bangladeshi PRSV-P isolates at the Advanced Centre for Plant Virology, IARI, India under the TWAS fellowship as a visiting scientist (March 2011 to March 2012). Comparative CP sequence analysis revealed that the PRSV-P isolates originating from Bangladesh were divergent up to 14% at amino acids level and shared 86-95 % amino acid sequence identity with those reported from the rest of Asia and 83-93 % from other parts of the world. (Akhter et al., 2013 Indian J Virol. 24(1): 70–73).
During my doctoral research, I worked on Beet pseudoyellows virus (BPYV), whitefly transmitted Crinivirus of greenhouse-grown cucumber in Japan under the supervision of Prof Kappei Kobayashi. Phylogenetic analysis of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) coding sequences from three fully sequenced BPYV strains and five partially-sequenced cucurbit-infecting BPYV strains from Japan and South Africa showed that cucurbit-infecting strains are closer to one another than to BPYV-S. In addition, the strawberry strain BPYV-S has an ORF2 (p6) in the downstream of RdRp gene in RNA1, but all of the cucumber strains, BPYV-JC, -MI and those from South Africa, lacked the ORF2 of RNA1, highlighting the difference between common BPYV cucumber strains and a unique strawberry strain Akhter et al., 2016 Virus Genes 52(6):828-834.
I did post-doc as an JSPS fellow with Dr. Kenji Nakahara at Hokkaido University Japan. During my stay at Hokkaido University, I studied the antiviral counter defense system by calmodulin-like proteins (CMLs) in plants.
My future vision is to manage the plant viral diseases using the plant antiviral immunity by understanding of the molecular host-plant virus interactions.

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