Dr. Medhat Mahmoud
Quantitative Geneticist
Email: Mahmoud1@gwdg.de


++++ March 2021 Medhat left us to follow his career in the private industry ++++


Photo Medhat Mahmoud.jpg


Background

A postdoctoral researcher within the working group of Prof. Timothy Beissinger. I have a Ph.D. in Quantitative Genetics from The University of Giessen (Germany), and my thesis was on “Genetic epidemiology of bovine infectious diseases”. I have worked on a number of projects dealing with estimating genetic parameters in cattle (using pedigree/genome-wide SNPs), genomic prediction (using G-BLUP and/or Bayesian alphabet) and Genome-wide association studies to identify new disease resistance variants. My interest in bioinformatics and applied Statistics began at NMBU University (Norway), where I wrote my MSc thesis on “Genotype imputation based on discriminant and cluster analysis”

 

Research in a Nutshell

My overarching research focus is to increase our understanding of the control of complex trait variation in plants and other species. But what does this mean exactly? Well if we look within populations of plant or other species we see that individuals differ from one another in almost all characteristics or traits. For example, morphology, productivity and even susceptibility and resistance to diseases all differ between plants. For such traits variation is controlled by a number of different genes and environmental events or breeding and management as well as interactions between these various factors. Thus there is no simple cause of variation between individuals and such traits are termed “complex”. My research innovates a new computational tools and uses statistical analysis of data where traits have been measured on large samples of plants or other species and data on genetic, environmental and other potentially causative factors have also been measured. We use these analyses to estimate the extent of genetic and environmental influences on variation. Ultimately we aim to utilize the information from whole-genome rather than gene-specific function. This information can ultimately be used build models that can help to improve plant productivity and identify individual plants susceptible to disease or contribute to the design of treatments and drugs that treat plant disease.

 

Key publications

·        Mahmoud, M., Zeng, Y., Shirali, M., Yin, T., Brügemann, K., König, S. and Haley, C., 2018. Genome-wide pleiotropy and shared biological pathways for resistance to bovine pathogens. PloS one, 13(4), p.e0194374.

·        Mahmoud, M., Yin, T., Brügemann, K. and König, S., 2017. Phenotypic, genetic, and single nucleotide polymorphism marker associations between calf diseases and subsequent performance and disease occurrences of first-lactation German Holstein cows. Journal of dairy science, 100(3).

·        Spiesschaert, B., Goldenbogen, B., Taferner, S., Schade, M., Mahmoud, M., Klipp, E., Osterrieder, N. and Azab, W., 2015. Role of gB and pUS3 in EHV-1 transfer between PBMC and endothelial cells: A dynamic in vitro model. Journal of virology, pp.JVI-01809.

 

Conferences

·        Mahmoud, M., Goszczynski, D., Ross, P., Cheng, H. "The potential of in vitro breeding in dairy cattle breeding programs." International Plant & Animal Genome XXVII, San Diego, CA, USA. January 12-16, 2019.

·        Mahmoud, M., Yin, T., Brügemann, K., and König, S. (2016). Phenotypic, genetic and genomic associations between calf health and subsequent performances and health status of first-lactation German Holstein cows. Vortragstagung der DGfZ und GfT, Hannover, Germany. September 20 - 21, 2016.

·        Mahmoud, M., Yin, T., Brügemann, K., and König, S. (2016). Genetic association between early calfhood health status and subsequent performance of dairy cows. 16th International Conference on Production Diseases in Farm Animals, Wageningen, Niederlande. Juni 20 - 23, 2016.

·        Mahmoud, M., Meuwissen, T., Egeland, T., (2014). Genotype Imputation Based on Discriminant and Cluster Analysis. INTERBULL BULLETIN NO. 48. Berlin, Germany. May 20 - 21, 2014.