Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A couple of young scientists — Dr. Rabaab Zahra, 33 and Dr. Syed Sikander Azam, 34 have appeared as a source of huge revenue generation for the Quaid-e-Azam (QAU) through their research work, Daily Times has learnt.

Dr. Zahra microbiology, has won multiple international research grants in pursuance of her research on “drug resistance in bacteria”, which according to Zhara is an absolutely critical field of study in the country.

As per information available, she worked for various projects that caused a revenue accumulation for the varsity. An amount of US $258,813 from the organisation known as Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was generated for their project “Barnards Network (2015-2018)”.

Beside this, a travel grant of £7,950 by the British Council under the UK-Researcher Links Travel Grant Programme 2015 (June 26-September 22, 2015) while 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) was also generated, stated the information.

While talking to this scribe, the spokesperson QAU, Dr.Illhan Naiz said that the income earned by these couple of scholars would be spent on the development of the varsity.

“15 per cent of that amount has been planned to keep for the varsity endowment fund while the rest of the amount will be used for other purposes of the varsity, adding that the research is one of these purposes,” Naiz claimed.

While explaining the research work by the scholars, Naiz said that the study would examine the risk factors for the carriage of Multi-Drug Resistant (MDR) Gram Negative-Bacteria (GNB) in mothers and subsequent carriage and infections in their newborn babies.

He added that the study had revealed the ways to decrease the infections in the mothers and their infant children. He further said that beside the above mentioned amount, Dr. Zahra raised more than US$ 350,000 worth of international research funding for projects that deal directly with issues affecting public health in the country.

Dr. Azam secured the Ernst Mach Follow-up Grant, Ernst and Mach Follow Up Grant (EZA) from the Austrian Science Foundation in 2015 and had earned 3750 Euros for the university.

He was also granted US$15,0000 by the International Foundation for Science (Sweden) for Exploring the Effectiveness Of Natural Products against Drug-able Targets from Pathogenic Bacterial Genomes.

He also generated for projects on Molecular Dynamics Simulation Studies of alpha-glucosidase from the Higher Education Commission (HEC), the Pakistan for Rs 1.999 million and Molecular Dynamics Simulation Studies, a sume of Rs 2.219 million.

Spokesperson Naiz informed the scribe that the varsity had deficit of Rs. 500 million and under such circumstances the research of these scholars would play a pivotal role for the varsity’s development.

Without mentioning the name of any institution, Naiz said that “the QAU was an autonomous body and due to other institutional interventions in the varsity’s smooth functioning, the varsity had suffered a lot academically and financially.”