I started my research career from a small plant tissue culture lab in Department of Horticulture, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, from where I completed MSc Hons Agriculture in 1994. Since then, I had been much fascinated for the applications of Plant Biotechnology; luckily in the same year, I got the chance to join the prestigious institution, (CEMB) as it has the best research facilities available in the country. I joined cotton biotechnology lab and worked for the tissue culture studies of local cotton varieties which are vulnerable to regenerate invitro. In 2002, I had been provided an opportunity by the institution to pursue for PhD to improve my academics. I enrolled for the same and worked for the thesis title, “Transformation of cotton with two Bt genes to develop sustainable resistance”, as cotton is the backbone of the Pakistan economy and very much suffered by the insect attack. Transgenic cotton resistant to boll worms produced then is now approved as a cotton variety CEMB-33. Most of the technologies of Genetic transformation and molecular biology were applied to complete this study.
After that, I switched my studies to Plant genomics and I spent six month’s training to University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA in 2005 and learned the advanced techniques application of Plant Genomics and used for the identification of genes from different plant species under abiotic stresses. I attended a “Biochip training course” organized by Genomic Solutions, at Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA in 2006. I have been awarded the Endeavour Executive Award by Austraining International Australia in 2010 and I worked in one of the best Australian Organization, CSIRO, Canberra. In 2012, I won CommonWealth Academic Fellowship and worked in University of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK. In April 2013, I visited Harran University, Sanliurfa, Turkey on invitation to develop a joint research proposal.
Presently, I am leading a group including PhD and MPhil scholars working on the identification of genes expressing in different crop species under abiotic stresses. Most of the genomics approaches and molecular biology techniques are used in our research. I have a number of publications in HEC recognized journals. I have funding as research grants from HEC as PI and CoPI. I have presented my research work at many national and international workshops and I myself organized national and international training courses/workshops at the department as focal person or as member of the organizing committee. I have the best motivation to contribute to the academic excellence and the research.