Basic Informations
C.V
Prof. Abd
El-Latif Hesham, is full Professor of Microbial
Genetics and Environmental Meta-Genome Biotechnology, and presently working as
Head of Genetics Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Beni-Suef University
(BSU), Egypt. He graduated and got his MSc from Genetics Department,
Faculty of Agriculture, Assiut University, Egypt and his PhD degree from
Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences in "Microbial
Genetics and Environmental Meta-Genome Biotechnology". He awarded
postdoctoral studies about " Meta-Genome Biotechnology" from
CAS-TWAS.
Before
joining BSU he worked at Assiut University since his graduation in 1992 to July
2019 as a demonstrator, lecturer, assistant professor, associate professor
and then full professor. He also worked as associate professor of microbial
genetics and biotechnology for five years in the Department of Biology, Faculty
of Science, King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia.
He is one
of the leading experts in the area of “Microbial Genetics &
Biotechnology”, “Biodegradation, Bioremediation & Phytoremediation”, "
Microbial community structure, “Soil Microbiology and Enzyme activities”,
“Biological Control”, “Anti-microbial activates”, “Biofertilizer”, “Biofuels”
and "Environmental Meta-Genome Biotechnology". He has
co-authored more than 80 peer-reviewed publications in reputed Thomson Reuters
impact factor journals and two book & 7 book chapters in international
reputed publishers like Elsevier, Springer-Nature, Taylor & Francis and
John Wiley & Sons. He is key person in many national and international
research projects related to field of microbial genetics and applied
biotechnology.
Prof.
Hesham has been the scientific & organizing committee member and
invited speaker in various international conferences. He is also a recipient of
several prestigious national and international awards including most recently
he has been elected as member of the Egyptian National Biotechnology Network of
Expertise (NBNE); and has been appointed as the Country Representative for
Egypt and the Arab Counties by International Biodeterioration &
Biodegradation Society (IBBS) UK, which belongs to the Federation of European
Microbiological Societies (FEMS).
Prof.
Hesham serves as an associate editor and editorial board member
for international reputed journals such as, Scientific Reports; Frontiers
in Microbiology; Current Bioinformatics; PeerJ; All Life Journal; International
Journal of Agriculture & Biology; Journal
of Environmental Biology and Biocatalysis and Agricultural
Biotechnology.
Master Title
Genetic improvement of some economical important characters in yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Master Abstract
The investigation aimed to improve some economically important characters in the
yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These characters included; sporulation rate,
extension of fermentation time, alcohol tolerance, and vitamin B6 production. Three
different geographical yeast strains were used to realize this aim. The plan of
improvement depended upon a selection program at gametic level (haploid) and
zygotic level (diploid). Results showed that sporulation rate can be improved for
strains that have desired economic characters, while the extension of fermentation
time increased. It was noticed that all selected progressive generations were alcohol
tolerant for the concentrations of 16%, 18%, and 20%. The selection program
succeeded to set up a superior strain for vit. B6 production. Finally, it was deduced
a positively significant correlation between alcohol tolerance and fermentation time,
while a negative significant correlation between sporulation rate and alcohol
tolerance was conformed. It was also concluded the absence of correlation between
vit. B6 production and either of sporulation rate and fermentation time.
PHD Title
Microbial degradation of PAH and environmental genomics in bioaugmentation systems using isolated yeasts
PHD Abstract
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) which contain two or more fused aromatic
hydrocarbon rings, are hazardous environmental pollutants, and are widespread in nature
because of anthropogenic activities. While it has been demonstrated that PAHs could be
degraded by many bacterial isolates, little is known about PAH degradation by yeast, especially
for high molecular weight (HMW) PAHs. In this thesis, the performance of isolated yeast
strains to degrade HMW-PAHs was investigated in liquid culture, slurry reactor and different
biological wastewater treatment systems. The molecular techniques such as fluorescent in situ
hybridization (FISH) with oligonucleotide probes (EUB338 for most bacteria, SRB385 for
sulfate reducing bacteria & PD1 for yeasts), 16S r RNA gene clone libraries and denaturing
gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplified 16S and
26S rRNA genes were used to study microbial structure dynamics of the above biological
systems. Variations of some functional genes (nahAc & C230) responsible for the degradation
of aromatic compounds were also followed.
The main results are given as below:
1) Five yeast strains, belonging to 4 different genera and growing fast on agar
plates coated with benzo(a) pyrene as the sole carbon source, were acquired
from oil contaminated soil, and were identified based on sequencing of D1/D2
domain of 26S rRNA encoding genes. PCR-DGGE was successfully used to
differentiate and authenticate the selected isolates. One of the strains identified
as Pichia anomala was capable of degrading naphthalene, phenanthrene and
chrysene, singly, and benzo(a)pyrene in combination. All of the 3 other PAHs
could be utilized as the carbon source for the cometabolic degradation of
2
benzo(a)pyrene with naphthalene as the best one.
2) Slurry reactor systems inoculated with the above five yeasts removed all of
the 16 PAHs contained in the weathered crude oil with a high efficiency. Fiveand six-ring PAHs could be effectively removed through co-metabolism. DGGE
was successfully used for the tracing of yeast population changes during
biodegradation. Three of the five yeast strains remained in the system over the
whole 6 week treatment with Candida maltosa-like and Pichia nguilliermondii
as the predominant ones. This is the first report on the PCR-DGGE analysis of
yeast populations in a slurry reactor.
3) Three biological treatment systems, inoculated respectively with activated
sludge (AS), activated sludge plus mixed yeast culture (SY), and mixed yeast
culture (MY), were constructed for treating the biologically treated produced
water supplemented with chrysene and benzo(a)pyrene as HMW-PAHs. All of
the three systems demonstrated high efficiency in removing low molecular
weight (LMW) PAHs. However, only the MY and SY systems demonstrated
significant removal of HMW-PAHs.
4) PCR-DGGE analysis indicated that all of the five yeast strains inoculated
remained in the SY and MY systems as the dominating populations, and FISH
results showed that the relative abundance of yeast population was over 10% in
the two systems, suggesting that the five effective yeast strains played a key role
in the removal of chrysene and benzo(a) pyrene. FISH results also indicated that
bacteria and yeast coexisted in all of the three systems, with SRBs as the
dominating population in eubacteria. The existence of catabolic genes (nahAc
& C230), which were responsible for LMW-PAHs degradation, were confirmed
in all of the three systems. These results suggested that bioaugentation for the
removal of HMW-PAHs from wastewater was possible by inoculating effective
yeast strains.