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Ibraheem (Mohammad) Afzal

Summer Student

Undergraduate NSERC Research Award Holder

Start Date: May, 2007

Research: Red algal genomics: identifications of reds (specifically various genus under the family Palmariaceae) and potential links between morphological distinctness of a given species and their geographical relationships.
Throughout ages, mankind has had an inclination towards satisfying one’s own curiosity about the world that surrounds them. Ever since my upper year in high school, I have been extremely fascinated by the scientific research that has been constantly evolving, at times which radically brings upon a change in the past-accepted ideologies. In grade twelve (in 2004/2005), I had an amazing opportunity to join the a science initiative project, The Aventis Biotech Challenge, where I was introduced the to new projects that were being conducted with the Barcode of Life. With this new initiative, a classification scheme was initiated that helped one more precisely identify species according to their genetic specialty. These new biochemical tools for analyzing such data was under rapid development, that engaged my interest is the lab techniques used widely across the world. Yet, widely varying from one place to another, some techniques more advanced than others, I was keen on learning about these scientific research, and chose to pursue it. Through USRA I was able to apply and learn about these new techniques, and gain experience in reading and analyzing a few papers in order to further enhance my learning of the scientific processes applied in the modern biotech frontier of innovation.