Dr. Rehan Sadiq Shaikh is presently working as a Professor & Director of the Centre for Applied Molecular Biology (CAMB), University of the Punjab, Lahore. Likewise, earlier he has headed the Institute of Molecular Biology & Biotechnology (IMBB), Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan. Based on his curiosity in the molecular biology field, after completing his undergraduate studies in Pharmacy, he joined the Center of Excellence in Molecular Biology (CEMB), University of the Punjab, Lahore, for his graduate studies and worked on the molecular genetics of hearing impairment in humans. Later, he did his post-doc training in Genome Editing based on the CRISPR technique at Prof. Haoyi Wang's lab at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China under a CAS-PIFI fellowship.
In his lab, he is supervising M.Phil. and Ph.D. students involved in various molecular genetics work. His major research interests include studies relating to the molecular genetics of Oculocutaneous Albinism (OCA) and its related syndromes, Age-Related Hearing Loss, Congenital Eye Diseases, and Otitis Media, presently. His research group had identified several prevalent novel mutations in the Pakistani population existing in different genes known to cause OCA, hearing loss, otitis media, night vision diseases, glaucoma, etc. In his lab, students also work on assessing the role of different gene polymorphism of GSTM1, GSTT1, GSTO2, GSTP1, PGR, ER, XRCC1, XRCC3, XPD, MYTH, CYP1A1, CY1B1, TP53, TP21, TSHR, CTLA4, etc. in breast cancer, Graves’ disease, and HCC predisposition of Pakistani population as well as molecular detection and prevalence of different infections in small ruminants and animals of Pakistan.
He has published various articles in journals of international repute with an approximate impact factor of 130, an h-index of 22, and an i10 index of 31. Moreover, almost 18 partial sequences of various infectious agents of small ruminants have been submitted to GeneBank by his group. He also has various extramural & intramural research grants on his credit and has an active collaboration with the Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, School of Medicine, University of Maryland, USA. Until now, 8 Ph.D. and 50 M.Phil research scholars have completed their degrees under his supervision.