Dr. Souhaila Al Khodor | Hamad Bin Khalifa University
Hamad Bin Khalifa University

FACULTY BIOGRAPHIES

Souhaila Al Khodor

Dr. Souhaila Al Khodor


Joint Associate Professor
College of Health and Life Sciences

  • Phone+974 40037397
  • Office locationSidra Medicine, OPC, 5th Floor, Room 321

Biography

Dr. Al Khodor has been the Director of the Maternal and Child Health program in the research department at Sidra Medicine, Qatar, since July 2019 and an investigator since January 2015. Dr. Al Khodor received her bachelor’s degree in Medical Lab. Technology from the Faculty of Public Health at the Lebanese University in 2001. Soon after, she started her master’s degree in Microbiology and Immunology at the American University of Beirut. Dr. Al Khodor received her second master’s degree and PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA. 

She is a Joint Associate Professor at the College of Health and Life Sciences (CHLS), and an adjunct assistant professor at the Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Health Science, Qatar University.

Dr. Al Khodor has over 36 peer-reviewed publications, a membership of the American Society of Microbiology (since 2005), and is a member of the editorial board of the Frontiers in Microbiology (since 2015).

Dr. Al Khodor currently acts as a guest associate editor for Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology and has been the associate editor for the Journal of Translational Medicine since 2017.

 


Research Interests

  • Microbiome in Health and Disease
  • Interaction Between Human Microbiome and Immunogenome
  • Host-Microbe Interaction
  • Cell Signaling
  • Use Metagenomics as a Tool to Predict Disease Onset or Disease Progression
  • Maternal and Child Health
  • Dynamics of Microbiome in Pregnancy
  • Multiomics for Biomarker Prediction

Experience

Postdoctoral Research Fellow- Advisor name: Dr. Iain Fraser

Laboratory of Systems Biology: Cell Signaling Unit. NIH, NIAID, Bethesda, MD.

2/2010 - 8/2014
  • Postdoctoral Researcher- Advisor name: Dr. Yousef Abu Kwaik

    Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY

    12/2008 - 2/2010
  • Graduate Student and Research Assistant- Advisor name: Dr. Yousef Abu Kwaik

    Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY

    2008 - 2010
  • Senior Microbiology and Medical lab technologist in charge of Blood bank and Microbiology Sections

    Hammoud Hospital, Saida, Lebanon

    11/2001 - 6/2005

Education

Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology

University of Louisville, Louisville, KY

2005 - 2008
  • M.Sc. in Microbiology and Immunology

    University of Louisville, Louisville, KY

    2006
  • M.Sc. in Microbiology and Immunology

    American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon

    2004
  • B.Sc. in Medical Lab Technology

    Universite Libanaise, FSP V, Saida, Lebanon

    2001

Selected Publications

  • Tobias Brummaier, Basirudeen Syed Ahamed Kabeer, Stephen Lindow, Justin C Konje, Sasithon Pukrittayaamee, Juerg Utzinger, Mohammed Toufiq, Antonios Antoniou, Alexandra K Marr, Sangrawee Suriyakan, Tomoshige Kino, Souhaila Al Khodor, Annalisa Terranegra,

    François Nosten, Daniel H Paris, Rose McGready, Damien Chaussabel: A prospective cohort for the investigation of alteration in temporal transcriptional and microbiome trajectories preceding preterm birth: a study protocol. BMJ Open 2018;9: e023417. doi:10.1136/ bmjopen-2018-023417

    2018
  • Manoj Kumar, Madhvi Rao, Kedar P Purnapatre, Tarani Kanta Barman, Vattan Joshi, Amuliya Kashyap, Tridib Chaira, Manisha Pandya, Souhaila Al Khodor, Dilip J. Upadhyay, Nobuhisa Masuda:

    DS86760016, a leucyl-tRNA synthetase inhibitor, with activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2019 Jan 22. pii: AAC.02122-18. doi: 10.1128/AAC.02122-18. [Epub ahead of print]

    2019
  • Parul Singh, Manoj Kumar and Souhaila Al Khodor:

    Vitamin D Deficiency in the Gulf Cooperation Council: Exploring the Triad of Genetic Predisposition, the Gut Microbiome and the Immune System. 2019 April 24. Front. Immunol. 10:1042. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2019.01042

    2019
  • Mattei V, Murugesan S, Al Hashmi M, Mathew R, James N, Singh P, Kumar M, Lakshmanan AP, Terranegra A, Al Khodor S (equal senior and corresponding author), Tomei S

    Evaluation of Methods for the Extraction of Microbial DNA From Vaginal Swabs Used for Microbiome Studies. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2019 Jun 6;9:197. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2019.00197. eCollection 2019.

    2019
  • Kumar, M., Garand, M. & Al Khodor, S.

    Integrating omics for a better understanding of Inflammatory Bowel Disease: a step towards personalized medicine. J Transl Med 17, 419 (2019) doi:10.1186/s12967-019-02174-1

    2019
  • Murugesan S, Al Ahmad SF, Singh P, Saadaoui M, Kumar M, Al Khodor S.

    Profiling the Salivary microbiome of the Qatari population. J Transl Med. 2020 Mar 14;18(1):127. doi: 10.1186/s12967-020-02291-2.

    2020
  • Gad H, Al-Jarrah B, Saraswathi S, Petropoulos IN, Ponirakis G, Khan A, Singh P, Al Khodor S, Elawad M, Almasri W, Abdelrahman H, Elawwa A, Khalifa A, Shamekh A, Al-Khalaf F, Petrovski G, Al Zyoud M, Al Maadheed M, Hendaus MA, Hussain K, Akobeng AK, Malik

    Corneal Nerve Loss in Children With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus Without Retinopathy or Microalbuminuria. J Diabetes Investig. 2020 Jun 3. doi: 10.1111/jdi.13313. Online ahead of print.

    2020
  • Triggering of Ras signaling by intracellular Francisella tularensis through recruitment of PKCalpha and beta1 to the SOS2/GrBr complex is essential for bacterial proliferation in the cytosol

    Cell. Microbiol. 12: 16040-1621, 2010

    Al-Khodor, S., and Kwaik, Y. A.

    2010
  • Mathieu Garand, Manoj Kumar, Susie Shih Yin Huang, Souhaila Al Khodor.

    A literature-based approach for curating gene signatures in multifaceted diseases. J Transl Med. 2020-DOI: 10.1186/s12967-020-02408-7

    2020
  • Anthony K. Akobeng, Parul Singh, Manoj Kumar, Souhaila Al Khodor.

    Role of the gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of coeliac disease and potential therapeutic implications. European Journal of Nutrition. 2020-07-10. DOI: 10.1007/s00394-020-02324-y

    2020
  • Mohammed Toufiq, Jessica Roelands, Mohamed Alfaki, Basirudeen Ahamed Kabeer, Marwa Saadaoui, Arun Prasath Lakshmanan, Dhinoth Kumar Bangarusamy, Selvasankar Murugesan, Davide Bedognetti, Wouter Hendrickx, Souhaila Al Khodor, Annalisa Terranegra,

    Darawan Rinchai, Damien Chaussabel, Mathieu Garand: Annexin A3 in sepsis: novel perspectives from an exploration of public transcriptome data. Immunology. 2020 Jul 18. doi: 10.1111/imm.13239.

    2020
  • Sara Tomei, Parul Singh, Rebecca Mathew, Valentina Mattei, Mathieu Garand, Mariam Alwakeel, Elham Sharif and Souhaila Al Khodor

    The role of Polymorphyisms in Vitamin D-related Genes in Response to Vitamin D supplementation. Nutrients 2020, 12(9), 2608; DOI: 10.3390/nu12092608

    2020
  • Manoj Kumar and Souhaila Al Khodor

    Pathophysiology and treatment strategies for COVID-19. J Transl Med. 2020 Sep 15;18(1):353. doi: 10.1186/s12967-020-02520-8

    2020
  • Gad H, Saraswathi S, Al-Jarrah B, Petropoulos IN, Ponirakis G, Khan A, Singh P, Al Khodor S, Elawad M, Almasri W, Abdelrahman H, Hussain K, Hendaus MA, Al-Mudahka F, Abouhazima K, McGrogan P, Malik RA, Akobeng AK

    Corneal confocal microscopy demonstrates minimal evidence of distal neuropathy in children with celiac disease. PLoS One. 2020 Sep 21;15(9):e0238859. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238859. eCollection 2020.

    2020
  • Brummaier T, Syed Ahamed Kabeer B, Wilaisrisak P, Pimanpanarak M, Win AK, Pukrittayakamee S, Marr AK, Kino T, Al Khodor S, Terranegra A, Carrara VI, Nosten F, Utzinger J, Chaussabel D, Paris DH, McGready R

    Cohort profile: molecular signature in pregnancy (MSP): longitudinal high-frequency sampling to characterise cross-omic trajectories in pregnancy in a resource-constrained setting. BMJ Open. 2020 Oct 10;10(10): e041631. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2020-041631

    2020
  • The PmrA/B two component system of Legionella pneumophila is a global regulator required for intracellular replication within macrophages and protozoa

    Infect. Immun. 77: 374-386, 2009

    Al-Khodor, S., Kalachikov, S., Morozova, I., Price, C. T., and Kwaik. Y. A.

    2009
  • Singh P, Rawat A, Alwakeel M, Sharif E, Al Khodor S.

    The potential role of vitamin D supplementation as a gut microbiota modifier in healthy individuals. Sci Rep. 2020 Dec 10;10(1):21641. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-77806-4. PMID: 33303854.

    2020