Curriculum Vitae
Bilal was born in Lahore, Pakistan. He received his undergraduate degree in Plant Pathology from University of the Punjab (2013) and completed his masters in Biotechnology from National Institute for Biotechnology & Genetic Engineering (NIBGE) in 2015. Plant pathogen interaction in disease development was the turning point to studying evolutionary biology. Bilal joined Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in 2016, where he explored the role of zkt gene in Arabidopsis thaliana, PDZ domain containing proteins in plants and also part of mango ripening in the post genomic era project. Having joined our IMPRS in 2018, Bilal was working with Dr. Julien Dutheil in the department of Evolutionary Genetics at the MPI, developing new methods for the inference of selection in protein sequences and studying co-evolution at amino acid level considering biochemical constraints. After his defense in Mai 2021 and postdoc wrap up in the Dutheil group he moved to London.