University of the Punjab.

Dr Shazia Rafique is working as Associate Professor for Centre of Excellence in Molecular Biology. She completed her PhD in Molecular Virology on “Generation of Infectious Hepatitis C Pseudo Particles Containing Functional E1E2 Envelope Protein Complexes and their neutralization Assay” from CEMB, University of the Punjab in 2011 under HEC indigenous PhD program. During her PhD research she won three travel grant awards worth 5000USD from IVI Korea, ICGEB India and NFID, USA. She worked as post doc fellow at LUMS School of Biological Sciences for two years. Her post doc research was based on the molecular characterization of CG97 gene of drosophila which is homologue of MLL5 gene in humans for treating early childhood leukemias. In 2014 She was selected for a course on protein purification fully sponsored by Cold Spring Harbor Labs, USA. Since 2016 she has been part of prestigious CEMB family. She has worked on studying the epigenetic control of PDE4 gene in glucose metabolism. Presently she is working on the development of therapeutic vaccines strategies against human papilloma virus induced cervical cancer. Her research work also focuses on epigenetic regulation of IL-11 in HCV-associated hepatocellular carcinoma and the broader role of IL-11 signaling in hepatocellular carcinoma. Her work also extends to the development of a stable GLP-1 receptor agonist aimed at providing affordable diabetes therapy. She is developing an in-house detection kit for viral load quantification and genotyping of HPV strains in Pakistan.
Research interests
Hepatitis C Virus, Epigenetics, HCV induced type 2 diabetes, Hepatocellular Carcinoma, Human Papilloma Virus, Therapeutic Vaccines