[3] Ahmed was born and raised in Hyderabad, India, where his father served as a public servant and his mother as an active volunteer.

[4] After completing his postdoc in 1984, Ahmed joined the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as an assistant professor.

Ahmed currently serves as the Vaccine Center director, professor of microbiology and immunology, and AIDS research investigator at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

[5][6] In 1995, Ahmed moved to Emory University and began his work to secure funding to develop a vaccine center there.

With the help of Emory graduate student Daniel Barber, Ahmed devised a way to use antibodies to block this inhibitory receptor and enhance flagging T cell function.