Research Collaborations

1. Diagnostics

There are a number of longstanding collaborations of Dr Imran Khan’s laboratory (UC. Davis) with Pakistani colleagues that include Drs Aamer Ikram (NIH, Islamabad), Waheed Akhtar (School of Biological Sciences, Punjab University) and Fareed Zaffar, Murtaza Taj (LUMS), The collaborations focus on tuberculosis and Covid-19 research with high throughput screens, machine learning and computational modeling to develop systemic (blood) and intracellular (cell signaling) disease biomarkers. A novel, affordable TB blood test has been developed that has shown high sensitivity and specificity in clinical trials in Pakistan and elsewhere.

  1. Sulman, S., S. Shahid, A. Khaliq, A. Ambreen, I. H. Khan, A. M. Cooper, and M. W. Akhtar. 2021. Enhanced serodiagnostic potential of a fusion molecule consisting of Rv1793, Rv2628 and a truncated Rv2608 of
  2. Mycobacterium tuberculosis. PLoS One 16(11):e0258389.
    Arif, S., M. Akhter, A. Khaliq, Z. U. Nisa, I. H. Khan, and M. W. Akhtar. 2021. Serodiagnostic evaluation of fusion proteins from multiple antigens of Mycobacterium tuberculosis for active TB. Tuberculosis (Edinb) 127:102053.
  3. Khaliq, A., R. Ravindran, S. Afzal, P. K. Jena, M. W. Akhtar, A. Ambreen, Y. Y. Wan, K. A. Malik, M. Irfan, and I. H. Khan. 2021. Gut microbiome dysbiosis and correlation with blood biomarkers in active-tuberculosis in endemic setting. PLoS One 16(1):e0245534.
  4. Mahmood, N., M. Akhter, N. Hussain, M. Shad, Z. U. Nisa, I. H. Khan, and M. W. Akhtar. 2022. The Rv3874-Rv3875 chimeric protein shows a promiscuous serodiagnostic potential for tuberculosis. Tuberculosis (Edinb) 136:102253.

2. Drug Design / Machine Learning

Project: Supercomputer Assisted pharmaco-informatics protocol for rational re purposing of therapeutics for COVID-19
Investigators: Drs. Ishrat Jabeen (NUST), Shahid Khan (LBNL), Safee Ullah Chaudhary

A tripartite collaboration led by Drs Safee Ullah Chaudhary (LUMS-SBASSE), Ishrat Jabeen (NUST) and Shahid Khan (MBC@LBNL) has been developing methods to encode protein dynamics as protein-water networks for anti-microbial drug design.

Another collaborative project between Dr Shahid Khan, Dr Stephen Whitelam (LBNL) and LUMS-SBASSE Physics is funded by the DOE Molecular Foundry (Grant #7586). The project applies neuroevolutionary machine-learning methods to design patterned materials from a components with simple geometries. It has applications across discipline ranging from battery design in nano-chemistry to cytoskeletal dynamics in cell biology.

Research Collaborations Archives