HEC honours QAU researcher team

Islamabad :The Higher Education Commission (HEC) has selected Dr. Amir Ali Abbasi and his research team based in the National Centre for Bioinformatics, Quaid-i-Azam University (QAU), for the best research paper award.
In 2016, the research group of Dr. Amir Ali Abbasi investigated the sequence evolutionary pattern and structural dynamics of the human gene SNCA. The SNCA is considered as the major causative gene involved in the early onset of familial Parkinson disease with symptoms including shaking, tremors, bradykinesia and difficulty with walking and gait.
The research effort of Dr. Abbasi’s team has identified a region within human SNCA gene, which plays a critical role in normal cellular function and disease pathogenesis. These findings pave the way to investigate further the vital role of identified the critical region of the SNCA in different interaction studies and also with the drug discovery perspective to target the region for the treatment of familial Parkinson disease.
Many neuro-degenerative disorders like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and Huntington's occur as a result of neuro-degenerative processes and will become the world's second leading cause of death by the year 2040 overtaking cancer.
Currently, the major focus of the worldwide research efforts is to identify the sub-cellular and genetic basis of neuro-degeneration. Such investigations offers hope for therapeutic advances that could ameliorate neuro-degenerative disorders like Parkinson.
Dr Abbasi’s research outcome has been accepted by highly prestigious multidisciplinary international journal 'Scientific Reports' from Nature Publishing Group.