COMSTECH International Workshop On Drug Design And Development Begins

COMSTECH International Workshop on “Drug Design and Development: The Art and Science” started at COMSTECH secretariat on May 20 with emphasis on indigenous drug development for OIC member countries through academia industry collaboration

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th May, 2024) COMSTECH International Workshop on “Drug Design and Development: The Art and Science” started at COMSTECH secretariat on May 20 with emphasis on indigenous drug development for OIC member countries through academia industry collaboration.

COMSTECH Distinguished Scholar, Dr. M. Hafizur Rahman, Professor and Chairman, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Dhaka International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh is delivering this workshop.

In his introductory address, Dr. Rahman said that the drugs are mostly developed in the western world.

He pointed out that drugs are developed mostly to cater indigenous needs.

He emphasized the need of developing drugs for the OIC member states indigenously.

Prof. Rahman said that drug development is a multi-disciplinary endeavor which needs collaboration and cooperation of academia and industry.

He expressed hope that this workshop will play an important role for the indigenous drug development initiative.

He appreciated the efforts of COMSTECH in this direction.

This 3-day workshop comprises six technical sessions, each session includes lectures and follow-up question and answer sessions. Importance of drug research, strategy and drug development, ethical consideration, clinical trials, drug design and development, biotechnology and drug discovery, development of proper animal models for drug development, translational of in-vitro dosages to in-vivo for drug research, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics for drug research, histological techniques for drug research, and data analysis and interpretation are the topics to be discussed in the technical sessions of the workshop.

Professor Dr. Hafizur Rahman has a long association with COMSTECH and ICCBS, University of Karachi. Through a collaboration between BIRDEM (Bangladesh Institute of Research and Rehabilitation in Diabetes, Endocrine and Metabolic Disorders) and ICCBS, he established a “Molecular Diabetology Laboratory” at PCMD (Panjwani Center for Molecular Medicine and Drug Research).

He also established mice islets isolation setup at PCMD for the first time in Pakistan, and identified several novel insulin secretagogues and explored their mechanisms.

Currently, Dr. Hafizur Rahman is working as a Professor in Dhaka International University, Bangladesh.

He has more than 60 publications in international journals. He also received a MEXT fellowship from Japan for the PhD program and has been awarded several research grants. Recently, Dr. Hafiz has been awarded the “COMSTECH Distinguished Scholar” title.

The workshop is being attended by national and international scholars from OIC member states both in-person and online.