Yaqoub Ashhab
Yaqoub Ashhab was born and grew up in Hebron, Palestine. He received his undergraduate biology degree with First Class Honours from Middle East Technical University, Turkey in 1990. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1994 and 1998, respectively. During his work in the laboratory of Prof. Ricardo Pujol-Borrell, he investigated the CC chemokines gene family and their role in autoimmune thyroid disease. In 1999 he joined the laboratory of Prof. Dina Ben-Yehuda at Hadassah Medical Centre, Hebrew University to do his Postdoctoral research in the field of programmed cell death. During his postdoc, he discovered and characterized the BIRC7 gene that codes for a new member of the “Inhibitor of Apoptosis Proteins” family. From 2002-2004 he became a research associate in the same research centre. In 2004 he joined Palestine Polytechnic University in Hebron, Palestine to lead the establishment of the first biotechnology research unit that has been funded by the European Commission and the World Bank. He is currently Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Director of Biotechnology Training and Research Unit. His main interest is to build a network for developing bioinformatics training and research models in developing countries. His two bioinformatics research areas are: studying the molecular mechanisms of programmed cell death, and investigating microbial genomics in order to develop novel diagnostics and vaccines.