Translational Medicine
Open Access

Muhammad Awais

Biography

Dr. Muhammad Awais completed his Masters degree in Chemistry and won Gold Medal Award in 1996 from the University of Punjab in Lahore, he worked for 5 years at the pharmaceutical industry. In 2001, he won the Monbukagakusho scholarship by the Japanese Government for a PhD at the University Tokyo ranked 19th in world ranking. He completed his doctoral degree in Chemistry in March 2005. During his doctoral degree and postdoctoral research at the University of Tokyo and the Institute for Molecular Sciences in Japan, respectively he worked on the development of biophysical assays by constructing genetically encoded optical fluorescent and bioluminescent probes for imaging protein conformational changes, drug-protein, and protein-protein interactions in single living cells and small living animals. In 2007, he joined the Centre for Cell Imaging at the University of Liverpool in UK where he developed a FRET-based assay using photoactivatable fluorescent proteins for imaging the dynamics of protein interactions targeting the NF-B signalling at single cell level. In 2009, he received the Young Scientist Award at the ELRIG Drug Discovery09 Conference in Liverpool. Since July 2010, he had been heavily engaged in a drug discovery program and translational research for pancreas diseases at the Liverpool NIHR Pancreas Biomedical Research Unit PBRU, the University of Liverpool. The PBRU works in close collaboration with a number of departments in academia and pharmaceutical industry.

Research Interest

Live cells and tissue imaging for translational research with special focus on acute and chronic pancreatitis. Development of genetically encoded optical probes (fluorescent and bioluminescent) for monitoring protein conformational changes, drug-protein interactions, and protein-protein interactions in single living cells.