Sohail Asif Qureshi

Sohail Asif Qureshi (also Sohail Qureshi or Sohail A. Qureshi) (born May 21, 1963) is a Pakistani molecular biologist, who was the second dean of School of Science and Engineering at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS).^[1] He was Professor of molecular biology at LUMS,^[2] and was involved in research linked to Archaeabacteria and Hepatitis C virus. Prior to being at LUMS, Qureshi was a Professor in the Department of Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan,^[3] which is one name in the long list of institutes he has provided his services to. His research interests span a wide range of topics, including gene regulation in hyperthermophilic archaea, Hepatitis C, Hepatitis E, cancer, epigenomics and neuroscience. He has had numerous contributions to the field of science, ranging from various high impact factor research papers to chapters in molecular and cell biology textbooks.^[4] He also had an important role along with coworkers in the discovery of the B recognition element in Archaea. On November 14, 2011, he was appointed as the Ahmed Dawood Professor at LUMS.

Life and education

Sohail Qureshi received a Master’s degree in biology from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad in 1984. He received a PhD in molecular biology in 1990 from University of Maine under the supervision of Richard D. Blake.^[5]

Professional and academic career

Qureshi was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Howard T. Jacob’s laboratory from 1990-1993 in the Institute of Genetics at University of Glasgow, Scotland. Research he was involved in included protein-DNA interactions in sea urchin mitochondria. He identified several sequence-specific DNA-binding proteins capable of regulating sea urchin mitochondrial DNA replication and transcription. From July 1993 to April 1994 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in D. Bentley’s laboratory at Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London. In April 1994, he joined the CRC Institute at Cambridge University, U.K. as a Senior Research Fellow and worked in Steve Jackson’s laboratory on the transcriptional apparatus in Sulfolobus shibatae.

Following this, Qureshi spent almost to four years at University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Neurology, where he identified more than fifty novel genes and studied the function(s) of two novel transcription factors in great detail. This work resulted in a patent which helped establish NeuroGenomeX (a company dedicated to identifying and validating genes/proteins involved in neuronal plasticity) in early 1999. While in Madison, Wisconsin, he was recruited by Invitrogen Corporation as a Senior R&D Scientist from 2001-2003.

In 2004, Sohail Qureshi joined Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan where he was the Jafferali Lalji Professor till 2010 at the Department of Biological and Biomedical Science. He developed his own research group at the University and taught advanced courses to both medical and postgraduate students. From 2006-2007, he was also a visiting professor at the Centre for Innovations in Medicine, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University where he was involved in the area of genetic vaccines.^[6] Sohail Qureshi is currently a visiting professor at Portland State University, Oregon. He teaches there at both undergraduate and graduate level.

Committee memberships

Sohail Qureshi is a member, Board of governors for the Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB), Punjab University. He is a member of the Aga Khan University Ethical Review Committee since April 2005. Since July 2004, he has been involved with Aga Khan University, FHS PhD Committee. From 2004 onwards, Qureshi has been the Chairman of AKU Sports and Rehabilitation Centre Advisory Committee and is also involved in the Neuroscience Module Committee and the AKU Faculty of Arts and Sciences Curriculum Advisory Committee.

Awards and honors

• Imperial Cancer Research Fund Postdoctoral Fellow (April 1993)
• Fred Griffee Award (given to the most promising graduate student^[7]), (May 1987)
• Quaid-i-Azam University Academic Distinction (Dec. 1984)
• Quaid-I-Azam University Scholarship (Jan. 1983 - Dec. 1984)
• Recipient of a Ministry of Education Scholarship to study medicine abroad (Oct. 1982)

References