Dr. Mohammad Safiqul Islam is currently working as a Professor and Chairman of the Department of Pharmacy, Noakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh and is the principal investigator of pharmacogenomics lab. After completing his B.Pharm and M.Pharm from the University of Dhaka, he joined as an industrial pharmacist in the Novartis (BD) Ltd for 2 years and later worked as a community pharmacist in abroad. His inclination always lies toward academia and after gaining substantial experiences in pharmaceutical fields, he joined in the University of Asia Pacific in 2005 and finally in the current institution in 2006 as a lecturer. In 2010, he joined the research group of late professor Dr. Abul Hasnat, Department of Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy, University of Dhaka who was the pioneer of pharmacogenomics research in Bangladesh and completed his PhD on the “Lung cancer risk in relation to nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, CYP2A6 and CYP1A1 genotype in Bangladeshi population”. Professor Dr. Ann K Daly, Newcastle University, UK was also involved with his PhD research work and relevant publication and one of his publications obtained the University Grants Commission (UGC) Bangladesh award, 2013.

Professor Islam then worked on the several research works on the pharmacogenomics of Bangladeshi lung, breast, colorectal and prostate cancers and is now actively collaborating with some local and international research institutes. A research article entitled “Loss of asparagine synthetase causes congenital microcephaly and a progressive form of encephalopathy” was published from the collaboration with a Canadian research group in the Neuron.

He received a grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Bangladesh in 2013. Mr. Islam was awarded JSPS postdoctoral fellowship (standard, 2 years) and joined the laboratory of Professor Kazushige Yokota, Shimane University on the April 2014. Currently, he is doing research on the Pharmacogenomics of autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia and cervical cancer of Bangladeshi population. He has more than 64 peer-reviewed publications and submitted few more in the related peer-reviewed journals.