Position & Department: Director/Professor, Institute of Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Science
Research Intersts: Disease Diagnostics/Immunoprophylaxis/Food Safety/Microbiological Quality Assurance/One Health Program. Accomplished research task on state of the art technology on the development of serodiagnostic tests including IHA, SRH, ELISA, CCIE and CFT. Development of immunoprophylaxis modules on Mycoplasma capri, Pasteurella multocida, E.coli, Salmonella, Streptococcus equi, Staphylococcus aureus etc Developed STAF test for the determination of antibiotic residues in Animal Food Reported new strains of Mycoplasma, NDV, Pasteurella to NCBI, USA Recently working on the Food pathogens and focusing on the Food security and food safety issues. Climate Change and emerging infections.
Position & Department: Incharge/Associate Professor, Institute of Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Science
Research Intersts: I am focused to develop conventional vaccines i.e., embryonated chicken egg adapted Newcastle disease, Avian Influenza virus vaccine and Avian Adenovirus vaccines for poultry as well as unconventional vaccines i.e., recombinant Newcastle disease virus expressing Heamagglutinin protein of Avian Influenza virus. Main target of mine is to train human resource capable of vaccine production locally instead of importing the vaccines spending huge foreign exchange. Another group of my students is actively engaged in bioplastic research.
Position & Department: Associate Professor, Institute of Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Science
Research Intersts: At a time, the acute shortage of food is not the concern of individual countries. In Pakistan, the poultry industry has emerged as a good substitute of beef and mutton. In poultry industry, antibiotics are being used lavishly as prophylactics, therapeutics and growth promoters causing not only serious problems in poultry but also leaving behind harmful residual effects in meat and eggs. So the need to find suitable replacements is evident. Probiotics are a prospective alternative to substitute antibiotics not only in the production of poultry but also to treat many infections in human beings. Probiotics are live microbial feed supplement, which have beneficial effects on host animal due to improvement in its microbial balance of intestines. My current interests are to isolate probiotic organisms form indigenous sources and to evaluate them in poutry for better production, to prevent diseases and to isolate antibacterial and antifungal substances from these organisms to be used in biopreservation.
Research Intersts: The research interests of my career are focused on understanding the molecular and immunological basis of public health infectious diseases at human-animal interface such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, nosocomial infections, HBV, HCV and developing different animal models of hepatitis. My veterinary background and the study of cytokines during hepatitis further motivated me to investigate the innate and adaptive immune responses during various infectious diseases. Stimulation of innate immune receptors by specific bacterial or viral ligands and shift towards adaptive immune compartment by cytokines provide interesting tool to manipulate host immune system for better protection against infections. I have experience to study the veterinary associated infectious diseases during my masters in Pakistan and cytokine immunology during my masters/Ph.D research in France. This combination of both competencies will help me to use these immunological molecules in the enhancement of vaccine responses against prevalent infectious diseases of public health. I have extensive experience in characterization of cellular and molecular immune responses during hepatitis in murine animal models and in human that will help to use this immunology based knowledge for the therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. My future goals will be to study the immuno-pathogenesis of emerging infectious diseases and to develop preventive strategies against prevalent Public Health/One Health diseases.
Research Intersts: The focus of our research is the molecular epidemiology of multidrug resistant bacteria at human-animal-environment interface. We are addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) globally and locally, as this is a question of high importance since we are on the verge of loosing the possibility to treat bacterial infections. We investigate how evolution and spread of plasmid-mediated extended spectrum ß-lactamases (ESBLs) and colistin resistance in bacteria occurs in response to the extensive use of antimicrobials in human and livestock. Our projects involve whole genome sequencing (WGS) to determine single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP), resistance genes, sequence types and clonal groups among ESBL producing E. coli recovered from human livestock and wildlife. We are also interested in zoonosis of foodborne Shiga toxin producing E. coli and avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC). The long-term objective of these studies is to help understanding the role of livestock and livestock based food in the spread of these pathogens to human.
Position & Department: Assistant Professor, Institute of Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Science
Research Intersts: The aim of my research and teaching is focused on finding molecular basis of the infectious diseases and interactions of microbes with immune cells. I am interested to decipher the particular features of microbes at molecular level which make them especially interesting from pathogenicity point of view. I am also interested to know how the microbes interact with immune system and modulate its response during disease conditions. During my master studies in The Netherlands I investigated the role of the histone post-translational modifications in the DNA damage repair response in the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae”. I had the opportunity to work with molecular biology techniques, like PCR, site directed mutagenesis, DNA sequencing, cloning, transforming and culturing of yeast, western blotting, gel electrophoresis, flow cytometry and purification of histones from yeast. During my master thesis I studied whether the activity of innate immune cells was affected by Hepatitis C virus core proteins. During this project I worked with MACS magnetic beads isolation technique, Culturing and differentiation of purified monocytes into dendritic cells and macrophages, ELISA, FACS analysis, intracellular cytokine staining and RT-PCR. During my PhD studies I investigated mechanisms of sex ratio bias at genomic level using genome wide microarrays. During my future studies, I am interested to utilise my previous knowledge of immunology, molecular biology and genomics to understand the molecular basis of infectious diseases and interactions of microbes with immune system
Research Intersts: The aim of my research and teaching is focused on Medical Microbiology and zoonotic diseases. I am interested in investigating opportunistic infections in HIV-infected patients. During my masters and PhD research in France, I worked on the aspects of latency induced by HIV-1, especially in microglial cells. With the introduction of HAART, viremia in AIDS patients can be reduced to non-detectable levels. But re-emergence of HIV-1 is the main cause of life long anti-HIV therapy. This re-emergence is mainly associated with latency. In Pakistan, I am interested in investigating opportunistic infection prevalent in AIDS patients, based on my knowledge acquired during my PhD in France. Currently, I am working on project to know prevalence of FIV and FeLV, to know retroviral load in domestic cats.
Research Intersts: The aim of my research is to decipher molecular mechanism involved in innate immunity especially host-pathogen interactions during infectious diseases. I am interested to study diagnosis and investigation of molecular pathogenesis involved in various emerging and re-emerging diseases of medical importance. During my masters and Ph.D research in France, I studied the maturation and posttranslational modifications incurred for the production of antimicrobial peptides. Later these endogenous peptides were used against various microbes (bacterial and fungal). Simultaneously, immune evasion strategies espoused by Staphylococcus aureus were also included in the studies. Finally these basic studies of host pathogen interaction were utilized for the development of antimicrobial peptide conjugated biopolymer production. This antimicrobial polymer was used for the coating of medical instruments and were analysed against various bacterial and fungal infections. This can be a helpful tool to combat hospital acquired infections during minor surgical manipulations. My future intensions are to investigate cellular and molecular basis of emerging diseases in Pakistan.
Research Intersts: I am currently working on various mechanisms of antibacterial and lysostaphin resistance in Gram positive bacteria. My focus is on the development of alternative therapeutic strategies for the successful eradication of the multiple drug resistant bacteria (MDR).
Research Intersts: My main research interest is in Virology, immunology, development of vaccines, surveillance and epidemiology of Infectious disease. During my Ph.D. I have worked on “Characterization of Live-Attenuated genotype 1 strain of Japanese encephalitis virus.” Moreover, I have also worked on several relevant projects which include “A Novel recombinant VLP vaccine displaying B and T cells epitopes of JEV” and “adaptation of Live-Attenuated JEV vaccine to Vero cells in association with mutations to structural proteins”. I have published my PhD research work in prestigious journals "Viruses", "Virus research" Vaccines, and “Virology”. I also have published > 16 research articles with cumulative impact factor of >60, >150 citations and h-index of 6. My vision for the future is to become a scientist with a deep understanding and concern for the livestock by developing indigenous vaccines.
Research Intersts: The focus of my research is the molecular epidemiology of Clostridium perfringens in Poultry and Livestock species. Our work frequently entails the bacterial outbreak investigation using whole genome, DNA fingerprinting-based platforms such as PFGE, MLST, etc. Our expertise is in cutting-edge technologies to provide rapid and robust diagnostic solutions in food animals and research has contributed to molecular epidemiology of bacterial pathogens, particularly in unraveling the population genetic structure, evolution and virulence mechanisms of major zoonotic pathogens: Clostridium perfirngens, Salmonella enteridus, Staphylococcus aureus etc. I am member of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (United Kingdom).
Position & Department: Lecturer, Institute of Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Science
Research Intersts: Utilization and manipulation of microorganisms for the production of industrially valued products (such as bioethanol, drugs and biopolymers). Role of rhizospheric bacteria in enhancing soil fertility and their phylogenetic analysis. Microbial Ecology and study of microbial communities in relation to changing climate.
Research Intersts: I am interested in bacterial antimicrobial profiling, antimicrobial resistance and underlying causes and control strategies, zoonotic potential of different pathogens of animal origin and public health risk assessment. Currently, I am working on the determination of antibiotic resistance patterns between the household pets, their owners and veterinary professional. This will help out to know the occurrence of multidrug-resistant microorganisms in the household environment and clinical settings due to infected pets. In future, I will focus on molecular characterization of these antibiotic-resistant genes, phylogenetic relationship of microbial species and development of a vaccine against the resistant strains.
Research Intersts: My research interest is to focus on Molecular Biology and Immunology, especially on development and purification of human recombinant therapeutics. During my Master research my thesis was on « Process Control strategy for increasing the yield and Quality of rhIL-6 » Gene was cloned and Experiment was designed for increasing the yield and purity of IL-6. Expression conditions were optimized for single step purification of IL-6 on large scale production. In the whole process molecular biology tools were used. Now, I am interested to use these techniques to develop vaccines. My long term goal is to develp a vaccine that is both preventative and therapeutic against Lyme disease.
Research Intersts: My Master’s research was based upon molecular characterization of genes influencing antimicrobial resistance mechanisms with focus on extended spectrum beta lactamases ESBLs and their spread and dissemination in various hosts and environment. Phylogenetic classification and molecular characterization of Enteropathogenic E. coli via multiplex PCR detection of chuA, yjaA, TspE 4 genes. Enteropathogenic E.coli is especially important with the reference to disease production in humans. In future, my research focus would be gastrointestinal function testing, intestinal microbial ecology with special emphasis on uses and effects of probiotics and prebiotics on intestinal physiology, microbial function and intestinal microbiota on canines, felines and companion animals.
Position & Department: Junior Lab. Assistant/Junior Lab. Assistant, Institute of Microbiology, Faculty of Veterinary Science
Research Intersts: