Associate Professor Dr. Payam Behzadi has been a faculty member of the Department of Microbiology, ShQ.C., Islamic Azad University, Shahr-e Qods, Iran, since 2004. He was named a Distinguished Researcher there in 2023. He has a BSc and MSc in Microbiology and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology. He was listed among the world's top 2% of scientists in 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026 by Stanford University, USA and Elsevier. Dr. Behzadi is a member of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Collaborator Network, participating in the role of Senior Collaborator.