Symposium on “Current trends in Genomics”

Genomics is one of the fastest growing filed in Biology and Genetics. With the availability of genetic blue prints (genome sequence) of large number of species including human there has been tremendous interest among the scientists for the elucidation of DNA-sequence data to get insights into the fundamental questions about life and ourselves. The accomplishment of Human Genome Project at the start of current century and of that of ENCODE project two years ago are two of the best examples of how the field of Genomics is defining the shape of the future research in molecular life sciences. Realizing the importance of this emerging discipline the Department of Animal Sciences organized a symposium on “Current trends in Genomics”, here at Quaid-i-Azam University.  In the inaugural session of the symposium, Prof. Dr. Asgari Bano, Dean Faculty of Biological Sciences addressed the audience and highlighted the key discoveries and breakthroughs taking place in the field of Genomics. She also emphasized the importance of such symposiums in enhancing the awareness among the students and keeping the faculty at par with the concurrent research. Four fresh PhD returnees were the resource persons of the symposium namely, Dr. Ibrar Ahmad, Dr. Javid Dasti, Dr. Rashida Abbasi and Dr. Ammad A. Khan, who delivered thoughtful talks on various cutting edge discoveries taking place in the areas of “high-throughput sequencing”, , “functional genomics” and “genomics in cancer” and “ENCODE project and its evolutionary implications” respectively. A large number of faculty members and students attended the symposium and took great interest in the seminars. At the last session of the symposium Prof. Dr. Safia Ahmad, Chairperson Dept of Microbiology delivered concluding remarks and appreciated the resource persons for their enlightening talks. Prof. Dr. M Shahab, Dept of Animal Sciences distributed the shields among the resource persons. Dr. Sajid Malik, symposium organizer, thanked all the resource persons and participants. During the refreshments, the resource persons interacted with the audience to answer their queries.