First female scholar from Balochistan completes PhD

File Photo: Convocation of Buitems Quetta

The first female scholar from Balochistan University of Information Technology and Management Sciences (BUITMS), Quetta, Sarwat Afridi, has completed her PhD from France under the Higher Education Commission (HEC) scholarship scheme.

Sarwat has completed her PhD from Université Aix-Marseille II, France. In 2008, Sarwat was awarded HEC overseas scholarship for France. From June 2008 to August 2008, she completed an intensive French language course for two months at ILCF (Institut de Langue et de Culture Françaises / Institut Catholique de Paris), France. In September 2008, Sarwat was registered in PhD at Université Aix-Marseille II, France, under the supervision of Professor Dr Pascal Rihet.

She completed her PhD in July 2012 titled “Influence of candidate gene variants on Plasmodium Falciparum Malaria related phenotypes and functional effects of NCR3-412 polymorphism associated to Malaria.” During her PhD, she worked on diverse projects related to genomics, bioinformatics and biochemistry. The main focus of her research was genetic analysis of resistance to malaria.

The overall objective of her work was to identify genes, which are involved in resistance or susceptibility to malaria in humans, and to identify human genetic factors which have been previously associated to resistance to malaria and have the tendency to influence the level of malarial antibodies thus ultimately leading to protection against malaria. Moreover, she also worked on functional evaluation of NCR3 polymorphism, previously associated to Malaria. All the results obtained help illustrate the contribution of bioinformatics, genetics and genomics in understanding the mechanism involved in resistance to human Malaria. During her PhD research she managed to publish three articles in international journals while two are under process of submission. She also presented her research work in the form of poster in two institutions. She has successfully graduated and returned to Pakistan and have rejoined her parent university.

The Higher Education Commission (HEC) is also planning to award 600 Masters leading to PhD scholarships for the natives of Balochistan province. The government has recently approved the project under the “Aghaz-e-Haqooq-e-Balochistan Package” on August 30, 2012.

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