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.