VISITING PROFESSOR FROM DERBY UNIVERSITY AT CIIT SAHIWAL
The Department of Biosciences COMSATS Institute of Information
Technology Sahiwal was honoured by a two weeks visit of Dr. Ashiq
Anjum Senior Reader at the School of Computer Sciences, Department of
Distributed Computing and Mathematics, University of Derby UK between
22 nd August to 5 th September 2014. This is worth mentioning that the visiting scholar is an Internationally renowned scientist and researcher in the field of Distributed Computing with a big stake in Bioinformatics. His visit was sponsored by the National Talent Pool of the Ministry of
Education, Government of Pakistan under PPQP project.
This visit was arranged by the efforts of all Biosciences team at CIIT Sahiwal for a detailed study of the existing infrastructure and teaching facilities to the students of BS Bioinformatics for a subsequent plan to improve upon its capacity to deliver high quality HR in the field of
Bioinformatics. Bioinformatics has recently emerged as the pivotal descipline to apply computational and IT technologies to answer questions about life and its processes. This area has assumed as the core discipline in next generation OMICS technologies including GENOMICS,
PHENOMICS, TRANSCRIPTOMICS, PROTEOMICS, METABOLOMICS, REUMINOMICS,
MEDICINE, PHARMACEUTICAL and BIOTECHNOLOGY industries all over the world. The bioinformatics software pipelines such as ELIXIR have become leading international hubs for providing extensive services and infrastructures to conduct research in all areas of life sciences where BIG DATA production and processing is involved. With this context, CIIT Sahiwal is in the process of connecting or subscribing to
ELIXIR node at its campus to introduce ELIXIR NODE in Pakistan for the first time. Another MEGA project is also under way to produce BIG OMIC data lab at
CIIT Sahiwal through its active collaborations with International players in
Bioinformatics.

Two MEGA projects have been planned to be funded by national and intenational agencies to materialize aforementioned plans in close collaboration with Derby University. During his visit,
Dr. Ashiq Anjum engaged with Biofaculty at Sahiwal Campus to draw up plans to empower and capacity build teaching and training aspects of BS Bioinformatics degree program at Sahiwal and
Islamabad Campuses. The visit scholar delivered two training and numerous personal development sessions with Bioscience faculty members. He also delivered a lecture to BS
Bioinformatics students at the conclusion of the first phase of his visit.
He is braced to return in December this year to finalize development plans to strengthen teach and research in Bioinformatics at the Sahiwal campus submit two MEGA PROJECTS for funding to ICT&RD. Dr. Ashiq Anjum is chairing UCC conference being held in December
2014 in London and in his capacity he has invited one faculty member from Bioscience
Department to participate in this prestigious conference in the field of IT and Bioinformatics.
The Director CIIT Sahiwal Professor Dr. Abdul Waheed hailed the efforts of Dr. Ahmad Ali, Dr.
Shazia Mannan HoD, Dr. Ibrahim, Dr. Abrar and the whole biosciences team to make Dr.
Anjum’s visit a success for strengthening BS Bioinformatics Program at CIIT Sahiwal and for making plans to substantially develop research infrastructure in Bioinformatics at the campus.