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Islamabad - Dr Shahid Mehmood, the recipient of Sitara-e-Imtiaz, has to his credit discovery of a novel function of gene causing bradycardeat that results in death of deaf people.

Recognising Dr Shahid’s outstanding contribution in the field of science (biology), President Mamnoon Hussain conferred Sitara-e-Imtiaz on him on March 23. The discovery by Dr Shahid Mehmood, who is currently working as Principal Scientist at National Institute for Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering, Faisalabad, will help save the lives of deaf people who die of undiagnosed bradycardia.

Dr Mehmood has also been working on genetic mapping of inherited diseases for the last 20 years and established the career screening tests, genetic counseling an parental diagnosis for inherited diseases to control affected births. He published this discovery in nature neuroscience as the first author and won Geers Foundation Award (Germany) for the best paper of the year 2011 on deafness. He identified a gene causing glioblastoma (brain tumor) which caused five deaths in a Pakistani family.

He is providing carrier screening and prenatal diagnosis of beta-thalassemia to control common genetic disorder.

Dr Mehmood joined Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) as junior scientist in 1987. He has published 56 research articles in international scientific journals with impact factor of more than 195. He has supervised 17 PhD thesis on various genetic diseases. He has been awarded 6 joint international research grants in collaboration with these universities. Dr Mehmood was offered post-doctoral research at Duke University Medical Centre, North Carolina USA and delivered lectures at Nationwide Children’s Hospital; Uppsala University, Sweden and Copenhagen University, Denmark.