Saleh Alquethamy

Dr. Alquethamy is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Macquarie University, specialising in protein biochemistry, microbiology, and RNA biology. He obtained his PhD in Microbiology from the Peter Doherty Institute at the University of Melbourne in 2023, followed by a postdoctoral appointment at Flinders University. He then joined A/Prof Jai Tree lab to leverage the regulatory functions of bacterial small RNAs (sRNAs) to enhance antisense oligonucleotides, aiming to develop novel RNA antibiotics targeting antibiotic-resistant bacteria. His previous research combined membrane protein biochemistry, molecular microbiology, animal models of infection, structural biology, and biophysical techniques to elucidate how bacterial pathogens selectively transport essential nutrients, such as metal ions, across biological membranes.

His current research aims to understand how environmental bacteria (e.g. cyanobacteria) and bacterial pathogens (e.g. Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli) use transport proteins to acquire essential micronutrients, and to exploit this understanding to develop antisense oligonucleotide therapeutics (PNA, PMO, 2′MOE) that silence critical nutrient acquisition genes in pathogens, or to engineer improved micronutrient uptake in biotechnologically relevant environmental bacteria.

To address these aims, Dr Alquethamy utilise state-of-the-art infrastructure at the Australian Genome Foundry to deploy high-throughput microbiologocal biochemal, and biophysical approaches at a scale not achievable in conventional laboratory settings.