Dr. Zahir Alimohamed is a Tanzanian molecular geneticist, genetic counselling practitioner, and biomedical scientist. He serves as a lecturer and research coordinator in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), and is the co-founder of the Tanzania Human Genetics Organization (THGO).
He earned his PhD in Medical Genetics from the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands, where he used next-generation sequencing to improve the diagnosis of genetic diseases such as cardiomyopathies, spinocerebellar ataxias and leukemia. His postdoctoral fellowships at MUHAS and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) focused on translational genomics, including the development of diagnostic and curative strategies for inherited disorders. Dr. Zahir’s research interests include cardiogenetics, gene editing for Sickle Cell Disease, pharmacogenomics in African populations, rare disease diagnostics, antimicrobial resistance, neurogenetics, and oncogenetics. He is one of the first practitioners of genetic counselling in Tanzania and is actively involved in building genomic medicine capacity in low-resource settings.
Dr. Zahir’s research interests include cardiogenetics, gene editing for Sickle Cell Disease, pharmacogenomics in African populations, rare disease diagnostics, antimicrobial resistance, neurogenetics, and oncogenetics. He is one of the first practitioners of genetic counselling in Tanzania and is actively involved in building genomic medicine capacity in low-resource settings.
