Three Bangladeshi scientists have been nominated as fellows of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS).
The nominees are: Zeba Islam Seraj, professor of Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Dhaka; Rubhana Raqib, senior scientist, head of Program for Enteric and Respiratory Infections, Infectious Diseases Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research (icddr,b); and AA Mamun, professor of Department of Physics, Jahangirnagar University.
TWAS elected 35 new fellows in nine categories on December 15, 2020. The only countries with more fellows nominated than Bangladesh are China (7) and Brazil (4).
The new members will be formally inducted at the next TWAS general meeting.
TWAS is a hub for a global network of scientists and organizations working to advance science in the developing world.
Dr Zeba Islam Seraj
Dr Zeba Islam Seraj was selected for her contribution to molecular biological approaches. She was involved with fine-mapping one of the major salinity tolerance loci in the rice landrace Pokkali.
She has characterized many indigenous rice landraces as salt tolerant and fine-mapped one to find tolerance QTL loci in two developmental stages of rice.
She has produced a number of transgenic salt tolerant rice with regulatory genes from normal and halophytic rice.
She has characterized an indigenous halophyte which produces rice-like grains and completes its life cycle in sea-water.
She is trying wide hybridization with this species and rice. She is also characterizing the endophytes associated with salt tolerant landraces and the halophyte.
Dr Seraj, member of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS), has received the Annannya award for scientific research and Dean’s award for research on salt tolerant helicase rice.
Dr Rubhana Raqib
Dr Rubhana Raqib was nominated for her pioneering studies on immunopathogenic mechanisms in clinical shigellosis that paved the pathway of performing such mechanistic studies in human enteric diseases.
She developed the ALS test, having high sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing active TB and monitoring therapeutic response; this was replicated in four countries.
Her clinical trials using non-antibiotic/repurposed drugs for combating infections by stimulating antimicrobial peptides demonstrated accelerated clinical recovery with enhanced innate immunity. The TB trial was replicated in Ethiopia.
Dr Raqib has three patents to her name for her work.
In a longitudinal cohort, she showed that environmental arsenic exposure from in utero till adolescence resulted in immunosuppression, immunosenescence, and increased risk of chronic disease development.
She also demonstrated that daily intake of selenium-rich food increases urinary arsenic excretion and reduces arsenic-mediated toxicity.
Dr AA Mamun
Dr AA Mamun was chosen for his pioneering contribution in nonlinear phenomena (solitons, shocks, vortices, etc) which are related to the natural disasters occurring quite frequently in Bangladesh, in different fluids (viz. plasma fluid, complex plasma fluid, degenerate quantum plasma fluid, etc).
He also made great contributions in the progress of physical sciences in the country by mentoring young bright minds.
Dr Mamun, member of the BAS, has received the Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award and the BAS Gold Medal, among others.
