Dr. Shahid Ullah of the Department of Biochemistry at AWKUM successfully defended his PhD thesis, entitled "Aberrant Gene Expression Profiling and Causal Variant Identification in Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia Patients from the Pathan Ethnic Group of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan" at the auditorium of the Department of Biochemistry, Garden Campus, AWKUM. He conducted his research under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Muhammad Arif Lodhi, with Prof. Dr. Asifullah Khan serving as co-supervisor.
Associate Prof. Dr. Muhammad Sheeraz Ahmad (University Institute of Biochemistry and Biotechnology, PMAS-Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi) and Associate Prof. Dr. Naeem Khan (Department of Chemistry, Kohat University of Science and Technology) attended his public defense as examiners. Faculty members of the Biochemistry department, the Director of Academics at AWKUM, and students were also present.
Dr. Shahid Ullah addressed questions from the examiners and participants with scholarly precision. His thesis was evaluated by international experts, including Prof. Dr. Ronald P. Kuiper Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology Netherlands and Prof. Dr. Jörg D. Hoheisel (Head of the Department of Functional Genome Analysis, German Cancer Research Center, DKFZ, Germany), as well as Associate Prof. Dr. Naeem Khan (Department of Chemistry, Kohat University of Science and Technology).
During defense, Dr. Shahid Ullah also spent six months at Cardiff University, United Kingdom (UK), through the IRSIP program, working as a guest researcher under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Alex Tonks. He has published two research articles based on his PhD research in peer-reviewed international journals and an additional six articles in international journals outside of his PhD work.
