Biography:

Dr. Fathiah ZAKAM received her doctoral degree in microbiology and molecular biology from the faculty of Science-University Mohammed V, Rabat, Morocco in 2012. By the same year, she obtained the University Diploma of clinical pharmacy form the Faculty of Medicine & Pharmacy at the same university. She obtained a MSc degree in microbiology and bio-engineering from the School of science and Techniques- Mohammedia, University Hassan II, Morocco in 2007 and has a BSc degree in Biology and microbiology from the University of Musol in Iraq.

In 2013, she joined the department of Laboratory Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Hodeidah University in Yemen and she is serving as a lecturer in diagnostic microbiology, medical microbiology, molecular biology and other related topics and she is in charge of medical unergraduate students.

She participated in the 2nd and 3rd workshops on the preparation of a strategic plan for the quality assurance at the Yemeni universities and she wishes to acquire and transfer more knowledge on the culture of Academic Accreditation, Quality Assurance and advancement of research.

Her main topic of research is the direct diagnosis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), the causal agent of tuberculosis and the detection of Multidrug resistant MDR TB strains from the clinical specimens by the molecular approach. She is interested in the comparative genome analysis of tuberculosis and non-tuberculosis mycobacterial strains for better diagnosing and controlling the diseases caused by those bacteria.

She is also working on other bacterial resistance, mainly, Gram negative bacteria and emerging viral diseases in Yemen. She published different papers on tuberculosis and other infectious diseases and was invited and participated in different international events and won different travel grants and awards.

Dr Zakham is a TWAS-Aro affilite and is a member in different international societies such as ESCMID, ISID, ISCB and Yemeni scociety of Biosafety and biosecurity (YSBB). Most recently, she obtained an Excellence postdoctoral fellowship form the Swiss Federal commission and her research topic is entitled �New approach for the diagnosis of drug resistant tuberculosis by Whole Genome sequencing directly from clinical samples� and she will join the research group at the Laboratory of Tuberculosis and Molecular Diagnostics in the Microbiology institute of University Hospital in Lausanne (CHUV), Switzerland for one year (sabatical year).

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