Islamabad - Two researchers of Quaid-e-Azam University have raised millions of dollars grant to initiate academic work in the fields of applied health sciences, which will help in research on drug resistance in bacteria.
Dr Rubab Zahra of the microbiology department has won multiple international research grants in pursuance of her research work on drug resistance in bacteria which is considered a critical study field in Pakistan.
The study will examine risk factors for carriage of multi-drug resistant (MDR) gram-negative bacteria (GNB) in mothers and subsequent carriage and infections in neonates. The study has implications and ramifications for infection control and mother/infant management.
She raised more than US $350,000 for projects that deal directly with issues affecting public health in Pakistan.
Dr Zahra is committed to establishing a world-class research facility at Quaid-e-Azam University that will help Pakistan cope with the deadly problem of drug resistant bacteria through better understanding of the phenomenon.
Grants include as US $258,813 from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as part of Barnards Network (2015-2018), a travel grant for £7,950 by the British Council under the UK-Researcher Links Travel Grant Program 2015 (June 26 - September 22, 2015), a Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellowship 2016 (October 2016 - March 2017) and a second Research Grant worth US$ 55,664 USD from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as part of BARNARDS community work (October 2016 - March 2018).
Meanwhile, Dr Syed Sikander Azam from bioinformatics department of Quaid-e-Azam University secured the grants for exploring the effectiveness of natural products against drug gable targets from pathogenic bacterial genomes, projects on molecular dynamics simulation studies of alpha-glycosidase from Higher Education Commission (HEC).
