Amanda Ooi
PhD Student
"Currently a Postdoc at KAUST, Saudi Arabia"
Amanda.Ooi@kaust.edu.sa| Linkedin
Introduction
Amanda Ooi is currently a Ph.D student in Bioscience at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, Saudi Arabia under the supervision of Associate Prof. Liming Xiong and co-supervision of Prof. Christoph Gehring and Prof. Boon S. Ooi. She previously did her undergraduate studies, majoring in B. Sc. (Hons) in Biotechnology at UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and further pursued in the same discipline at University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom, where she graduated with a M. Sc. in Biotechnology and Enterprise.
Research Interests
Current research interest lies in the characterization of plant growth under single-wavelength laser light using the model plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, which involves plant phenotyping, biochemistry, biomolecular and proteomic approaches. She also look at the physiological relevance of a plant stress hormone, abscisic acid (ABA) towards the modulation of guard cell outward-rectifying potassium (GORK) channel activity in response to drought stress, in which she has developed some skills and experience in cell biology, biochemistry and electrophysiology in membrane transport biology. She is also broadly interested in the discovery of molecular components underlying signaling pathways in stress and programmed cell death responses, in particular the fungal Candida albicans in order to explore and to identify novel antimicrobial agents.
Selected Publications
Ooi, A., Wong, A., Ng, T.K., Marondedze, C., Gehring, C., and Ooi, B.S. (2016). Growth and Development of Arabidopsis thaliana Under Single-Wavelength Red and Blue Laser Light. Sci. Rep. 6:33885.DOI: 10.1038/srep33885
Ooi, A., Wong, A., Esau, L., Lemtiri-Chlieh, F., and Gehring, C. (2016). A Guide to Transient Expression of Membrane Proteins in HEK-293 Cells for Functional Characterization. Front. Physiol. 7:300.DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2016.00300
Wong, A., Ngu, D.Y.S., Dan, L.A., Ooi, A., and Lim, R.H.L. (2015). Detection of Antibiotic Resistance in Probiotics of Dietary Supplements. Nutr. J. 14:95.DOI: 10.1186/s12937-015-0084-2
Awards
Fifth place winner of the 2015 KAUST Falling Walls Lab
International Conference on Arabidopsis Research (ICAR 2014) Graduate Student Research Recognition Award selected for Excellent Research Abstract (Top 15 Graduate Students)
First place winner of the 2013 DOW Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge (SISCA) Award
Recipient of the KAUST Provost Award and KAUST PhD Fellowship (2013)
University of Exeter Dean’s Commendation (top 2.5% of the 2010-2011 masters programme cohort)
Recipient of the Commonwealth Shared Scholarship Commission (CSSC) Award for masters’ degree at University of Exeter (2010)
KAUST Affiliations
Bioscience, Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering (BESE) Division
