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Mahafuzur Rahman
I am interested in protein amyloid formation and their roles in disease pathology, as well as the artificial self-assembling of amyloid structure for biotechnological applications.
Research
Amyloid is self-assembled fibrillar protein conformation, which is associated with several diseases including, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), type-2 diabetes, and systemic amyloidosis such as transthyretin (ATTR) amyloidosis. Nevertheless, the beneficial roles of amyloid structure in Nature have recently been identified, and artificial self-assembling of amyloid structure for various applications are emerging.
My Ph.D. research and studies were focused on three types of Biotechnological developments. First, I developed new peptide molecules, as an alternative to antibody, to detect amyloid-beta protein aggregates linked to AD. Second, I established a biotech-based methodology to investigate the interaction of toxic amyloid-beta aggregates with proteins in human biofluid. Third, I developed an enhanced immunoassay, by utilizing artificial self-assembled amyloid material, for the detection of small amounts of ATTR aggregates that causes ATTR amyloidosis.
Techniques that I use in my research include absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy, biomolecular interactions analysis technique–surface plasmon resonance, seeding and cross-seeding, and immunoassays.
Background
Dec 2013- Dec 2018: Ph.D., Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden. Thesis: Amyloid aggregates: detection and interaction
2010-2012: M.Sc. in Biology (biotech program), Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden.
2006-2010: B.Sc. in Biotechnology Engineering, University of Development Alternative, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Selected publications
Rahman MM, Schmuck B, Hansson H, Härd T, Westermark GT, Sandgren M (2018). Enhanced detection of pathological ATTR aggregates using a nanofibril-based assay. In preparation.
Rahman MM, Westermark GT, Zetterberg H, Härd T, Sandgren M (2018). Protofibrillar and fibrillar amyloid β-binding proteins in cerebrospinal fluid. J Alzheimer Dis., 66(3):1053-1064.
Wahlberg E, Rahman MM, Lindberg H, Gunneriusson E, Schmuck B, Lendel C, Sandgren M, Löfblom J, Ståhl S, Härd T (2017). Identification of proteins that specifically recognize and bind protofibrillar aggregates of amyloid-β. Sci Rep., 7: 5949, 1-15.
Rahman MM, Zetterberg H, Lendel C, Härd T (2015). Binding of human proteins to amyloid‐β protofibrils. ACS Chem Biol., 10 (3):766–774.
Dubnovitsky A, Sandberg A, Rahman MM, Benilova I, Lendel C, Härd T (2013) Amyloid-β protofibrils: size, morphology and synaptotoxicity of an engineered mimic. PLoS ONE 8(7): e66101.
Rahman MM, Hasan N, Das AK, Hossain T, Jahan R, Khatun A, Rahmatullah M (2011) Effect of Delonix Regia leaf extract on glucose tolerance in glucose-induced hyperglycemic mice. Afr. J. Tradit. Complement. Altern. Med., 8 (1): 34–36.