Fellow

Dr. Mustafizur Rahman

(Fellow, 2024)

Dr Mustafizur Rahman currently holds the position of Senior Scientist and serves as the Senior Director (Acting) and Head of the Virology Laboratory and Genome Centre at icddr,b. Over the past two decades, he has developed extensive expertise in virology, epidemiology, genomics, and vaccine and drug trials. As Principal Investigator and co-investigator on more than 100 infectious disease projects, Dr Rahman collaborated with researchers from esteemed universities and research institutions worldwide, accumulating valuable experience. Furthermore, he is deeply dedicated to nurturing emerging scholars, having successfully supervised more than 70 undergraduate research students in the past, including 5 PhD students. He is overseeing the progress of junior and mid-level scientists at icddr,b. His laboratory colleagues and he has actively participated in the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also served as a member and advisor on the Government of Bangladesh emergency committees. In recognition of his scientific achievements, he was honoured with the title "Best Resident Scientist 2015" by the Global Network of Bangladeshi Biotechnologists.

Education and Scientific Contributions

Mr Rahman completed BSc in Microbiology in 1993 and MSc in Microbiology in 1995 at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He obtained PhD in 2008 in Medicine (Virology) from the University of Leuven at Leuven, Belgium), and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Genomics in 2013 from the University of Florida at Gainesville, USA. He published more than 200 research articles in highly indexed national and international journals, organized, participated & presented papers at various academic & professional conferences/ seminars/ workshops at home and abroad. Total Google Scholar citation: 14596, h-index 50 and i10-index: 131 on 28 January 2025. Research Interest Score is 4,317 which is higher than 98% of researchers in ResearchGate members and 97% of researchers in Virology, Infectious Diseases and Bioinformatics.

Throughout 2021-22, he was deeply engaged in the Government's efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, offering his expertise as both a member and an advisor on the GoB COVID-19 emergency committees. Being the Principal Investigator of the National Respiratory Virus Genomic Surveillance Network representing the Virology Laboratory and Genome Centre of icddr,b, he supported GoB collaborative project with IEDCR, ideSHi, and 19 hospitals across the country. The platform updates on variants of COVID-19, RSV genotypes, and Influenza genotypes are published on Govt. Website (www.iedcr.org) for establishing an early warning system on potential outbreaks. This valuable data source assists policymakers, healthcare workers, and researchers in making decisions, allowing them to adapt strategies according to the active genotypes or variants. Contributed to establishing new technologies for disease detection and technology transfer to other national and international institutes in combating pandemic potential pathogens such as Nipah virus, Coronavirus, highly pathogenic influenza and other respiratory viruses.