Plant basal resistance - Universiteit Utrecht

Curriculum vitae
Shakoor was born on 14 th of April 1976 in the remote village “Bharat Khas” of the Bannu
District in the Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa Province of Pakistan. Soon after his birth, his parents
moved to the capital city of the Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province, Peshawar, where he
obtained his primary and secondary education. Subsequently, he obtained his 1 st University
degree in veterinary sciences from Sindh Agriculture University Tandojam, Pakistan. During
his studies, he developed a special interest in the subject of Immunology and Pharmacology.
After having worked for several years as a veterinarian in Pakistan, he moved to the United
Kingdom and obtained an MSc degree with distinction in pharmaceutical sciences from
Kingston University London. Immediately after his graduation in 2007, he was selected for a
six-month internship under supervision of Dr. Ruth Gordon-Weeks at Rothamsted Research
(UK) to investigate the role of secondary metabolites in resistance of wheat against pests
and diseases. During this internship, he qualified himself for a scientific assistantship in the
laboratory of Dr. Jurriaan Ton to study the genetic and biochemical basis of basal resistance
in Arabidopsis and maize, with the possibility to obtain a PhD degree in the department of
Professor Corné Pieterse at Utrecht University (The Netherlands). The work described in this
thesis is the result of that research project.
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