Sara Mahdizadeh

Main research interest: developing efficient vaccines against mycoplasmas by using the novel CRISPR method for genome engeneering of these pathogens, and applying genomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics to investigate their gene function.

Dr Sara Mahdizadeh is a veterinary graduate who worked as a vet publich health officer before completing a PhD in veterinary microbiology from the University of Melbourne in 2019. For her PhD she developed a novel CRISPR technique for genome engineering of mycoplasmas and studied their gene function using metabolomics.

Her PhD was focused on

investigating the molecular pathogenesis of Mycoplasma gallisepticum and Mycoplasma bovis. These are important pathogens of birds and cattle, respectively. Sara commenced a postdoctoral position in 2019 at Asia Pacific Centre of Animal Health (APCAH) on a research project collaborating with the Disease Control Group of the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries to support their M. bovis eradication programme. She began her current position as a Research Fellow in APCAH in 2020 on an animal vaccine used to protect against M. synoviae, another important poultry pathogen. This project involves innovative approaches such as Whole Genome Sequencing and metabolomics to investigate the basis of attenuation of the current vaccine against M. synoviae. This would improve understanding of the vaccine efficiency and could lead to development of a more efficient vaccine against this pathogen.