Editor’s Note: Mahnoor left the group in 2023. For the latest information, please refer to her LinkedIn profile.

Mahnoor Zulfiqar is a doctoral researcher at Friedrich Schiller University Jena under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Christoph Steinbeck. She joined the group in September 2019.

Mahnoor did her Bachelors (2012-2016) in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Gujrat, Pakistan. After her BS Graduation, she opted for a Masters (2017-2019) in Bioinformatics from COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), Islamabad, Pakistan. Her Master’s thesis research was on “Drug Discovery for Cardiovascular Diseases” particularly targeting Phosphodiesterase Type 5 Enzyme.

With the completion of her Master’s degree, she is now working as a doctoral researcher for the research cluster Balance of the Microverse by Jena School of Microbial Communication (JSMC), Friedrich Schiller University Jena. Her PhD project aims at the integrative analysis of Metabolomics and Transcriptomics data to assess the biosynthetic capacities of microbes in a consortium.

During her PhD, she developed Metabolome Annotation Workflow (MAW) for assigned putative candidate structures from a variety of databases to mass spectrometry data. Currently, she is working on making MAW FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable). She is also working on a research project for elucidating the metabolic interactions between microorganisms.

In her free time, she enjoys swimming, traveling and reading fiction and non-fiction books. She also likes to write fiction and draw characters. She also enjoys learning new skills and developing hobbies. Her current goal is to learn Guitar.