Asad Ullah Khan is an Indian microbiologist, biochemist and a professor at the Interdisciplinary Biotechnology Unit of the

Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh Muslim University (abbreviated as AMU) is a Public University, public Central University (India), central university in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, which was originally established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as the Muhammadan Anglo-Orie ...

. He is known for his studies on multidrug resistant clinical strains as well as for the first sighting in India of Aligarh super bug (NDM-4), a variant of New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1 (NDM-1). He is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Biotech Research Society, India and the Indian Academy of Microbiological Sciences. The

Department of Biotechnology The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) is an Indian government department, under the Ministry of Science and Technology responsible for administrating development and commercialisation in the field of modern biology and biotechnology in India. It ...

of the Government of India awarded him the

National Bioscience Award for Career Development The National Bio-science Award for Career Development or N-BIOS Prize is an Indian science award for recognizing excellence and promoting research in bio-sciences disciplines. It was instituted in 1999 by the Department of Biotechnology of the Gov ...

, one of the highest Indian science awards, for his contributions to biosciences, in 2012.

Biography

Dr. Asad Ullah Khan did his undergraduate studies in chemistry and post-graduate studies in biotechnology at the

(AMU) after which he pursued his doctoral studies at the

International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology The International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB) was established as a project of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in 1983. The Organisation has three Component laboratories with over 45 ongo ...

, New Delhi to secure a PhD in biochemistry from Aligarh Muslim University. He started his career as a lecturer at AMU in 1997 and during his career there, he did his post-doctoral studies at Rutgers University during 2000–03. He returned to India to resume his career at AMU where he holds the position of a professor and the coordinator of the Biotechnology Unit.

Professional profile

Khan's research focus is on developing new inhibitors against multidrug resistant clinical strains with special interest on extended spectrum beta lactamases (ESBL) such as NDM-1 and CTX-M, using QSARR modeling and structure-based virtual screening methods. The team led by him collect '' Escherichia coli'' and '' Klebsiella pneumoniae'' strains from hospital and community-acquired infection sites and it was during one of those explorations that he discovered a variant of New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1 named NDM-4, more commonly known as ''Aligarh super bug'', in the sewage drains of Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Aligarh, in 2014. This was the first recorded sighting of the antibiotic-resistant super bug in India; the finding was later disclosed by Khan in an article published in the

Journal of Medical Microbiology The ''Journal of Medical Microbiology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering all aspects of microbiology relevant to human and animal disease, including pathogenicity, virulence, host response, epidemiology, microbial ecology, diagno ...

. Later, Khan and his colleagues developed a protocol for detecting super bugs and was successful in sequencing the genes of three variants of NDM-1. His studies have been documented by way of a number of articles and

ResearchGate ResearchGate is a European commercial social networking site for scientists and researchers to share papers, ask and answer questions, and find collaborators. According to a 2014 study by ''Nature'' and a 2016 article in ''Times Higher Education'' ...

, an online repository of scientific articles has listed 241 of them. Besides he has also edited three books. Khan is a member of the scientific committee of the Indian Academy of Biomedical Sciences and sits in the advisory board of the Sir Syed Global Scholar Award (SSGSA) committee. He is an associate editor of BMC Microbiology for their section on Clinical microbiology and vaccines and is a member of the Task Force on Bioinformatics, Computational and Systems Biology of the

. He has also conducted workshops and seminars on the subject.

Awards and honors

Recipient of Sri Om Prakash Bhasin Award-2019 and visitor's Award 2019 for his trail-blazing research in Biotechnology; The Association of Microbiologists of India (AMI) awarded Khan the Young Scientist Award in 2006; AMI honored him again in 2009 with the Alembic Award. He received the Most Active Teacher Award from Aligarh Muslim University in 2010 and the Cutting-Edge Research Enhancement and Scientific Training (CREST) Award of the Department of Biotechnology in 2011. The

(DBT) of the Government of India awarded him the

, one of the highest Indian science awards in 2012. When Aligarh Muslim University instituted the Outstanding Research Award in 2014, he was the first recipient of the award. Khan was elected as a fellow by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2017. He is also an elected fellow of the Biotech Research Society, India and the Indian Academy of Microbiological Sciences and the various research fellowships he has received include University Grants Commission fellowship (1995–98), Boyscast fellowship of the

Department of Science and Technology Department of Science and Technology may refer to: *Department of Science and Technology (Australia), an Australian Government department between November 1980 and December 1984 * Department of Science and Technology (India) * Department of Science ...

(2004–05) and the visiting fellowship of the Indian National Science Academy (2006–07).

Selected bibliography

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Notes

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Khan, Asad Ullah N-BIOS Prize recipients Living people 21st-century Indian biologists 21st-century biochemists Indian medical researchers Indian microbiologists Scientists from Uttar Pradesh Year of birth missing (living people) Fellows of the Royal Society of Chemistry Aligarh Muslim University alumni Academic staff of Aligarh Muslim University Rutgers University alumni Indian biochemists