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First Death Anniversary of Prof. Dr. Muhammad Aslam khan (1932-2023)
No full textProf. Dr. Muhammad Aslamkhan died peacefully on February 20, 2023, in Lahore, Pakistan. Prof. Aslamkhan was the founding head of the Human Genetics and Molecular Biology Department of the University of Health Sciences Lahore (UHS). He was also a Director of Sports and cocurricular activities at the UHS. His services to UHS were brought by the Higher Education Commission’s project entitled “strengthening of basic medical sciences at UHS, ” commonly known as SBMS as a project director. This project not only brought a lot of funding for the establishment of research facilities at the UHS but also employment opportunities for young people.
Prof. Aslamkhan received his Doctorate of Science (D.Sc.) in Genetics and Anthropology from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, in 1963, after his master's degree from Punjab University (1953). He was among the founding fellows of the Biological Society of Pakistan (1956) and the Zoological Society of Pakistan (1968). In 1968, he was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, London. Later, the Pakistan Academy of Medical Sciences awarded him a fellowship in 1985. His professional services include academic and research affiliations with the provincial bodies of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
He served as Deputy Chief for the Division of Medical Entomology of the International Center for Medical Research and Training (ICMRT) at the Pakistan Medical Research Center, Lahore. Later, he became the Chief of Malaria Vector Research at ICMRT. This was the time when he studied the bionomics of mosquito species in Pakistan, which serves as a reference (1). While affiliated with the University of Maryland School of Medicine, he extended his research towards vector-borne diseases of public health importance (2-10). After retirement from the University of Maryland, he worked as an independent consultant for several national and international bodies. Later, he joined the Higher Education Commission’s project SBMS as Project Director. During this affiliation, he also launched the first department of Human Genetics in the country at UHS Lahore. This department is still operational and produces many PhDs in human genetics, working at various reputable organizations in and outside the country. The department’s objective was to study the basics of genetic diseases in the country, and it has been doing very well until today. Prof. Aslamkhan’s research on genetic diseases has mainly focused on the role of consanguinity in gene pooling in the Pakistani population (11-13). Over the past several years, he has also voluntarily offered genetic counselling to patients with hemoglobinopathies at Sundas Foundation Lahore. He also studied the public health dynamics of blood donors at the Sundas Foundation in addition to genetic counselling (14, 15). He was also recognized as an Eminent Professor of Genetics by Higher Education Commission.
In 2017, he founded The International Journal of Frontier Sciences and became its first editor-in-chief until he died last year. I am publishing this obituary at his first death anniversary on February 20, 2024, praying for his eternal peace.
I wish him to rest in peace in his life in hereafter. Ameen
Molecular Basis of Cell Cycle Arrest by Erufosine in Breast and Colorectal Cancer Cell Lines
No full textABSTRACT
Background: Breast and colorectal cancers are the leading causes of cancer related mortalities worldwide. Treatment options are limited for advanced stages of these cancers. In this context, search for more effective therapeutic compounds is inevitable. Erufosine, a synthetic 4 th generation alkyl-phosphocholine, has shown its anticancer potential over the last few years against a variety of cell lines belonging to solid and non-solid cancers. The reported toxic effects were found to be highly tumour cell specific with minimal side-effects including reduced haemolytic activity and less harmful nature for bone marrow.
Aim: Purpose of this study was to evaluate molecular basis of the cytostatic effects imposed by erufosine in breast and colorectal cancers.
Materials & Methods: In preliminary phase, toxic effects of erufosine were identified against breast (MDA-MB-231, MCF-7) and colorectal cancer cell lines (SW480, SW620) by MTT proliferation assays. Afterwards, the cells were exposed to erufosine and cytostatic effects were evaluated by propidium iodide based staining and flow-cytometry. In this study, metastatic breast (MDA-MB-231) and colorectal (SW620) cancer cell lines were treated with erufosine and expressional modulations in 84 cell cycle relevant genes were identified by using a ready-made 96-well panel and qRT-PCR methodology. Expressional changes, imposed by erufosine in the cell lines, were used to design a signalling cascade with the help of online Ingenuity Pathway Analysis software. Afterwards, breast (MDA-MB-231, MCF-7) and colorectal cancer (SW480, SW620) cells were treated with various concentrations of erufosine and expressional levels of the three most altered genes, selected from the ready-made panel results, were investigated to identify concentration dependant effects of the test compound.
Results: Preliminary results indicated that erufosine induced significant antiproliferative effects in breast and colorectal cancer cells. In addition, erufosine was found to be a strong cytostatic agent and induced a major halt in G2/M phase of the cell cycle in breast and colorectal cancer cells. Ready-made panel results showed significant modulations (≥ 2fold) in various cell cycle related genes after exposure of the cells with erufosine. The designed pathway indicated the involvement of a number of gene families at different stages of the cell cycle. Exposure of the cells with various concentrations of erufosine showed concentration dependant effects of the compound on expressional profile of the selected genes.
Conclusion: Erufosine bears significant cytotoxic and cytostatic potential against breast and colorectal cancer cells. Expressional modulations in multiple cell cycle related genes are imposed by erufosine in breast and colorectal cancer cells. Further in vitro and in vivo studies are required to support the evaluation of erufosine in clinical settings against breast and colorectal cancer
Role of Epidemiological Studies in Disease Prevention
Get PDFToday’s society is full of disease that are of different natures including genetic, infectious and metabolic etc. Every disease has its own mechanisms of affecting humans and different prevention mechanisms as per disease nature. These factors are included in epidemiology of disease. Other factors include prevalence and incidence of diseases in different populations. Exactly knowing about disease epidemiology helps governing authorities to prevent the disease. Unfortunately, under-developed and developing nations are not focusing on diseases epidemiology. On the other hand, all developing nations developed best public health practices based on diseases epidemiology data. These studies may vary from basic epidemiological surveys to identification of microorganism strains etc
Outsourcing of Clinical Laboratory Services in Pakistan
Get PDFPrimary and Secondary Healthcare Department of Punjab Government, Pakistan owns 25 district headquarter hospitals, 100 tehsil headquarter hospitals and a number of rural health centres and basic health units. Currently, the department started process of revamping in hospitals and other healthcare delivery centres. In first phase, revamping of infrastructure and services of 25 district headquarter and 15 tehsil headquarter hospitals was started. For better care to patients and service delivery, services of janitorial and security were outsourced to private service providers. Now, the department plans to improve diagnostic services in these hospitals. For this purpose, laboratory and radiology services were planned to outsource. Islamabad Diagnostic Centre and Northshore Medical Labs are the two service providers who are to provide clinical laboratory services in selected hospitals. Islamabad Diagnostic Centre (Private Limited) is a leading diagnostic centre in Islamabad (Federal capital of Islamic Republic of Pakistan) which is ISO 151589:2012. While, Northshore Medical Labs is an American laboratory located and registered in New York State Department of Health and accredited by College of American Pathologist. It is expected to enhance clinical laboratory services standard by outsourcing of these laboratory services. First such laboratory became functional in District Headquarter Hospital Chakwal last month. Although the contract between outsourced laboratory and department describes upraising of services and quality standard by following MSDS and departmental proficiency testing
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
A Protocol to Extract a Specific Genomic Region from a Public Whole-Genome Database and Modify Analytical Bin Length for Population Genetic Studies
No full textWith the advent of “next-generation” sequencing and the continuous reduction in sequencing costs, an increasing amount of genomic data has emerged, such as whole-genome, whole-exome, and targeted sequencing data. These applications are popular not only in mega sequencing projects, such as the 1000 Genomes Project and UK BioBank, but also among individual researchers. Evolutionary genetic analyses, such as the dN/dS ratio and Tajima’s D, are demanded more and more for whole-genome-level population data. These analyses are often carried out under a uniform custom bin size across the genome. However, these analyses require subdivision of a genomic region into functional units, such as protein-coding regions, introns, and untranslated regions, and computing these genetic measures for large-scale data remains challenging. In a recent investigation, we successfully devised a method to address this issue. This method requires a multi-sample VCF file containing population data, a reference genome, target regions in the BED file, and a list of samples to be included in the analysis. Given that the targeted regions are extracted in a new VCF file, targeted population genetic analysis can be performed. We conducted Tajima’s D analysis using this approach on intact and pseudogenes, as well as non-coding regions
Detection of Malware by Deep Learning as CNN-LSTM Machine Learning Techniques in Real Time
No full textCyber-attacks on the numerous parts of today’s fast developing IoT are only going to increase in frequency and severity. A reliable method for detecting malicious attacks such as botnet in the IoT environment is critical for reducing security risks on IoT devices. Numerous existing methods exist for mining IoT networks for previously discovered patterns that may be exploited to improve security. This study used a hybrid deep learning approach, namely the CNN-LSTM technique, to detect botnet attacks. Any software that infiltrates a computer system or is installed there without the administrators’ knowledge or permission is malicious. There is a wide range of viruses that cyber-criminals use to further their nefarious ends. A revolutionary deep learning system has been developed to counteract the increasing quantity of harmful programs. The system takes advantage of NLP methods as a baseline, mixes CNNs and LSTM neurons to capture local spatial correlations, and learns from successive long-term dependencies. Spatial invariance, often known as symmetry, is the property wherein the dataset size remains constant throughout iterations of an algorithm while undergoing various transformations. Therefore, automated extraction of high-level abstractions and representations aids in the malware categorization process. When compared to its predecessor research study, the current level of categorization accuracy is significantly greater than 0.81. The proposed CNN-LSTM method obtained an R2 = 99.19% in the dataset, with a correlation coefficient for the CNN-LSTM technique of R2 = 100% utilizing the provided dataset. The symmetry correlation of the CNN-LSTM, which illustrates that the CNN-LSTM method has the highest detection accuracy, at 99%, among the other malware detection methods such as the SVM and DT. The rest of classifiers had an accuracy of 98% for DT, and 95% for SVM. The accuracy of the LSTM model is 99%, the precision of the CNN-LSTM is 99%, recall is 99% and F1 score is 1
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