Dr. Ashraf Al-Amoudi

Curriculum Vitae

Ashraf Al-Amoudi studied physics at the University of Birzeit in West Bank, Palestine and completed his dissertation in 2004 at the University of Lausanne under the supervision of Prof. Jacques Dubochet. During his PhD work, he developed the method of cryo-electron microscopy of vitreous sections (CEMOVIS). CEMOVIS is currently the most reliable technique to visualize the ultrastructure of biological specimens under close-to-native conditions. He applied this technology to various biological samples including bacteria and human skin. In 2005, Al-Amoudi moved to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg and worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the group of Prof. Achilleas Frangakis, where he spent four years working on cryo-electron tomography of vitreous sections of intercellular adhesion junctions from human tissues. Using cryo-ET of vitreous sections, the scientists have provided the first 3D molecular map of cadherins in native human epidermal desmosomes, the major intercellular adhesion junctions.

In 2010, he moved to Bonn to take up a position as a joint group leader of the DZNE and the Forschungszentrum caesar in cryo-electron microscopy and tomography.