By Our Staff Reporter
Karachi: Experts at a Workshop on “Modern Tools and Techniques in Health and Disease” said that the latest tools and techniques in health and disease are mandatory for modern medical science, research and health care system in Pakistan.
The workshop was organized by Karachi University’s Dr A. Q. Khan Institute of Biotechnology & Genetic Engineering (KIBGE).
Delivering his speech, the KIBGE’s director-general Prof Abid Azhar said that genetic characters are directly or indirectly involved in the evolution of emerging disease in our society.
“The treatment plans and cure of emerging diseases is not possible without taking into account the genetic variations from normal to patients,” he said, adding that the modern tools and techniques in health and disease are mandatory for modern medical sciences, research and health care system.
Dr Muhammad Afzal, former editor-in-chief of World Health Organization’s East Mediterranean Health Journal, shared the modern statistical and epidemiological tools in health and disease. He also trained the participants of workshop about various options available for using latest statistical software.
The workshop’s resource person Dr Nisreen AL-Hmoud, Director Royal Scientific Society, Amman, Jordan, presented a world view on how to regulate the production and market for genetically modified food and organisms. She also discussed with the participants the baseline information regarding genetically modified organisms in terms of food and feed.
Director Institute of Biomedical and Genetic Engineering (IBGE), Islamabad, Dr Muhammad Ismail, presented the modern protocols for gene data retrieval from world databases and the analysis of genes and DNA using modern techniques available online.
The workshop’s training sessions were conducted by Director Pasteur Institute of Tehran, Iran, Dr Soroush Sardari and Chief Scientific Officer of IBGE, Islamabad, Dr Abdul Hameed. Renowned nuclear scientist Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan was the guest of honour at the workshop’s concluding session.
The participants of the workshop included research scholars and students from Karachi University, Hamdard University, Baqai Medical University, Jinnah University for Women, National Institute of Child Health (NICH), BUITEMS and Sardar Bahadur Khan University for Women, Quetta.