Dr. Nasir Ali

Nasir Ali completed his Master’s study in 2012 at the Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Agricultural University Peshawar. From 2012 to 2015, He joined the School of Life Science, the Xiamen University to pursue his Ph.D. study majoring in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Right after completion of his doctorate, he joined the Department of Biochemistry, at Abdul-Wali Khan University Mardan, as a visiting faculty for 06 months. Later 2016, he joined the School of Environment, at Tsinghua University as a postdoctoral fellow for two years. He was awarded a CAS presidential international fellowship initiative (PIFI) at CAS Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, later 2018. He got another postdoctoral fellowship at Bioproduct and Biosystem Engineering, University of Minnesota in 2023. He working on several research themes including Sustainable Microbial Engineering: integrating process engineering and microbiological science for water remediation and waste-to-chemicals, mainly focusing on i) innovative carbon-cycle transformations and assembling rare function genomes in extreme environment(s), and ii) producing bioenergy (CH4, Biofuels) and biomaterials (pharmaceuticals, food-addition) from waste streams. Overall, his current research works circulate ‘Environmental Technology Innovation and Application’, aiming to understand the interactions between environments and human societies and develop new methods for sustainability. The outcomes have been published in more than 40 articles in several international peer-reviewed academic journals. 

1. A two-stage anaerobic bioconversion of corn stover: Impact of pure bacterial pretreatment on methane production, Environmental Technology & Innovations. 2020. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352186420314413
2. Combinations of alkaline hydrogen peroxide and lithium chloride/N,N-dimethylacetamide pretreatments of corn stalk for improved bio-methanation. Environmental Research. 2020. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0013935120304564
3. Alkaline hydrogen peroxide pretreatment of Bamboo culm for improved enzymatic release of reducing sugars, Cellulose, 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10570-019-02829-8.
4. Metagenomic analysis and characterization of acidogenic microbiome and effect of pH on organic acids production, Archives of Microbiology, 2019. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00203-019-01676-2.
5. Evaluation of bacterial association in methane generation pathways of an anaerobic digesting sludge via metagenomic sequencing, Archives of Microbiology. 2020. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31456050/.

• Fungal-bacterial interactions facilitating lignin mineralization. Funded by U.S. DOE, Biological and Environmental Research program 2022. 

• PIFI awardees at Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology. 
• Postdoc awardee at Tsinghua University, ¥200,000. 
• CSC scholarship award at Xiamen University ¥120,000. 
• Protein engineering conference travel awards, University of Illinois, ¥10,000 

• “Award For Impactful Research” of College of Engineering, Peking University. 
• National Scholarship of Graduate Student, Excellent Graduate Student of Xiamen University, 

¥ 10,000; top 04%  

• National Youth Internship Award, National Internship Program Pakistan PKR120,000. 
• Merit Award of USAID, University of Malakand, Pakistan, PKR55,000. 
• Research Achievement Scholarship of Tsinghua University, ¥2,000; top 5%. 
• Scholarship of Undergraduate Student, PKR80,000.