Rabail Zehra, Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Dr. Amir Ali Abbasi

Rabail Zehra, Ph.D. candidate under the supervision of Dr. Amir Ali Abbasi was recently invited as a keynote speaker at the first international conference held at Abbottabad University of Science and Technology under the theme “New Horizons in Management Sciences and Entrepreneurship: Opportunities and Challenges” on 29th-30th December, 2016. Her talk delivered a perspective that integrated the field of Bioinformatics with its yielding entrepreneurial opportunities in business.

Notification of Elected BINSA Members Session 2016-2017

Oath Taking Ceremony will held on Thursday 29th, December 2016 at NCB Conf Hall

QAU’s Young Scientist(Dr. Sikander Azam) Raising Millions For Research Amidst Difficult Circumstances

While Pakistan’s top varsity continues to struggle to manage its deficit and desperately needed development funds from the Government of Pakistan continue to be delayed, its young faculty are blazing new trails and competing successfully at the national and international levels to bring in desperately needed resources. To take just two noteworthy examples: Dr. Rabaab Zahra (Microbiology) and Dr. Syed Sikander Azam (Bioinformatics). 


Dr. Syed Sikander Azam secured the Ernst Mach Follow-up Grant: Ernst Mach Follow Up Grant (EZA) from *Austrian* Science Foundation in 2015 (*3750 Euros*), *US$ 15,0000* grant from International Foundation for Science ( *Sweden*) for Exploring the Effectiveness Of Natural Products against Druggable Targets from Pathogenic Bacterial Genomes, Projects on Molecular
Dynamics Simulation Studies of alpha-glucosidase from HEC, Pakistan.*(1.999 million PKR)* and Molecular Dynamics Simulation Studies of Caspase from HEC, Pakistan.*(2.219 million PKR)*, in addition to the Start-up Facility for Computational Studies of Tyrosinase Inhibitors” by startup grant from Higher Education Commission, Pakistan *(0.5* *million PKR). *


It is almost entirely due to the efforts of faculty members like Dr. Rabaab Zahra and Dr. Sikander Azam that QAU, in spite of a recurring deficit of Rs. 500 million, limited development support from the Government, and severe infrastructural constraints, which leave the University with little to invest in its own research programs, is still competing successfully against better-funded national and international HEIs.

We are very proud to announce Dr. Amir Ali Abbasi invited as a speaker to a international 2016 Big Data Forum in Life and Health Sciences (December 5-8, 2016)Beijing , China

Zahida Perveen (PhD Scholar) successfully defended her doctoral thesis

Zahida Perveen defended her doctoral thesis on “Involvement of cytoplasmic dyenin light chainin apoptotic process: a differential gene expression study using in vivo and in silico approaches” on 29 January 2016. All members of the department were invited to join the defense. Dr. Asma Gul and Dr. Jamil Ahmed were external examiners in the PhD Committee.

Main focus of her work was differential gene expression analysis using mouse as model with relevance to infertility. Because of 90% similarity between mouse and human genome, she was confident to add value, by sharing her expertise gained in this aspect to treat this common problem.

During the course of her PhD studies in QAU, she published 6 papers in peer reviewed journals. Her PhD was sponsored by HEC indigenous scholarship program and she also visited Queensland institute of Medical Research Australia for carrying six month research under International Research Support Initiative Program (IRSIP).

Prof. Amer A. Beg from H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Centre expressed comments on her thesis as follows:

“Ms. Parveen presents an impressive body of work that more than meets the requirement for a PhD degree. The results, discussion and figures are also well presented and of high quality”.

We congratulate Ms. Zahida and wish her full success in her career!