Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani physician/scientist Dr Faisal H Cheema was awarded $4 million to lead a cutting edge research on heart transplantation.

Dr Faisal H Cheema belongs to the rural areas of Wazirabad and Hafizabad and got his education from Crescent Model School as well as the Government College, Lahore before moving to Karachi to attend medical school at Aga Khan University.

After graduation, he moved to the United States and further trained and worked at Columbia University , Loyola University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland and University of California Berkley. He is currently a faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Heart Institute in Houston, TX.

He has served as Senator for the Ivy-League Columbia University and is involved with several professional, academic, community and philanthropic organisations. Dr Cheema’s passionate and selfless work for young physicians culminated in the establishment of Committee for Young Physicians within Association of Physicians of Pakistani-descent of North America, on which he served for more than a decade that included chairing it. He has helped hundreds of students in their search for residencies and or advancing their medical careers in the US. He loves to mentor medical students and young physicians.

Ever since he left his motherland, he continues to collaborate with various institutions in Pakistan and guides students from medical schools across the country. Dr Cheema has published more than 110 scientific manuscripts in high impact journals. In due course of time, through strategic partnerships among academic, corporate, governmental and philanthropic institutions, Dr Cheema’s mission is to make heart and lung transplant and artificial devices for end-stage heart failure and lung disease a reality in Pakistan.

He also aspires to develop a national organ donation and allocation system for Pakistan. Dr Cheema and his colleague Dr Jeffrey A Morgan have been awarded $4 million in funding from Brockman Medical Research Foundation to lead cutting edge research on heart transplantation.

Published in Daily Times, March 11^th 2018.