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Md Ashrafuzzaman

Professor

Professor

كلية العلوم
Bldg 5, Office 2A65
صفحة

Biophysics Laboratory, Department of Biochemistry

PI: Md Ashrafuzzaman, D.Sc.

Research areas:
                                        Ion Channel Energetics
                                        Anticancer Drug Discovery
                                        Viral Vaccine Discovery

Techniques:
                      Theory, Computation and Experiments

Biophysics Laboratory funding
4 million SAR NPST grant to Dr. Md Ashrafuzzaman to perform drug discovery research for chemotherapy applications.
Graduate students, research technicians and posdocs are encouraged to contact for positions.
Office
Department of Biochemistry, College of Science, King Saud University
Office # 2B10, Bld# 5, PO Box 2455, Riyadh 11451, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Tel+966 1 4698797, Cell+966 564174931, Fax +966 1 4675791
Email: mashrafuzzaman@ksu.edu.sa
 
Laboratory location
Biophysics Laboratory, 2nd floor, Bld#5
 
Research Theme
Stability of the structures of biomolecules, their independent random existence, coexistence with other molecules <complex biological structures> in biological environment, especially in cellular environment (cell membrane, cellular interior and exterior regions where various proteins exist) are often energy- based biophysical problems. Going beyond simple biochemical approaches we apply various biophysical techniques to not just observe things or measure the effects but also try to understand the hidden causes of responses, underlying mechanisms and aftermath effects using response theory based science. We apply all three common methodologies of investigations: theory, experiments and computation to penetrate dip into the problems. Our techniques are dedicated mainly to first finding the equilibrium structures, calculating the energies corresponding to specific structures, then raising the understanding of phenomenological structural transitions between various energy landscapes that represent various functional aspects.
 
Ongoing Projects
Drug Discovery Project: Quantification of drug-target and drug-off-target binding and understanding the underlying mechanisms.
There are two specific projects currently under investigations: Drug-Lipid binding and Drug-Protein binding. For drugs novel molecules to be used for chemotherapy purposes are investigated.
Drug Delivery Project: Discovery of a novel nanotechnology for drug delivery into cellular interior regions. 
Research Group
A group consisting of 6 scientists and researchers with Dr. Ashrafuzzaman as Principal Investigator is running these very big and visionary projects. Among the members there are Biologists, Biochemists, Chemists and Physicists. This has made our research group a vibrant and very diversified one with various available expertise and interests. All the research works are primarily performed in newly created Biophysics Laboratory of the Biochemistry Department located in the second floor of Building # 5. Facilities from Protein Research and Genome Research Chairs are also utilized through active collaboration with the members there for better execution of the projects.
We publish our research achievements regularly in international peer reviewed journals