Caretaker federal Health Minister Ejaz Rahim inaugurated a week-long international workshop on 'Nano Medicine' here at the Comstech's Palace of Science, on Thursday.
The workshop, tenth in the series of Comstech's thematic workshops, organised during the last two years, aims at gaining better understanding in the Muslim world of current issues relating to toxicity and environmental aspect of this most recent branch of medicine.
The Caretaker Minister in his inaugural address appreciated the role of Comstech in promoting science and technology across OIC region and praised the efforts of Professor Dr Attaur Rahman, Comstech's Coordinator-General, for realisation of the dream of scientific and technological independence of the Ummah.
He said that if Pakistan was serious in bringing about a renaissance of sciences in OIC countries, then it [Pakistan] must introduce cutting edge technologies and build a human resource base equipped to sustain development process of the present and the future.
The minister asked the Planning Commission to establish a number of hospitals, capable of teaching and applying nano medicine technology. Further, these hospitals must have adequate research and development facilities, he said.
These days, Nano medicine is able to set up molecular machines that could enter cells and perform repair functions, and for utilisation of surgery which could detect nerve diseases, and about 300 companies were active world-wide tying to make all these applications of nano medicine engines viable at commercial scales.
Ejaz Rahim explained that about one million people die in Pakistan annually from different diseases. Of them 26.2 percent die from communicable diseases like enteric fever, diarrhea, TB, EPI Cluster, respiratory infections, hepatitis, malaria, and venerable diseases, and 54 percent from non-communicable diseases like cancer, endocrine disorders, congenital and renal diseases and neuro-psychiatric problems, posing massive challenge to Pakistan's health system.
Disease is a global issue and needed to be attacked on a global scale. However, the USA which had 14 percent of world's population spent 42 percent of the global health expenditures but 84 percent of the world population spent only 11 percent of their combined money on health.
Professor Ataur Rahman said nano-medicine was a new type of pharmaceuticals targeted on diseases before the symptoms of diseases occur. He said his organisation Comstech was trying to build new knowledge such as providing 500 pages of experiments abstracts everyday as well as interlocking Muslim countries library processing nearly 6,000 pages of information daily. In addition, an encyclopaedia of Muslim scientists have been built which provides information on a number of scientific fields, and the university where he is pursuing research.
The thematic workshop will be addressed by five foreign scholars and five Pakistan scientists including Dr Anwar Nasim, Comstech advisor; Dr NM Butt, Chairman of Nanotechnology Commission; Dr Irshad Hussain of the Lums School of Engineering; Dr Arshad Saleem, Chairman, Physics Department Comsats and Dr Rashed Bashir.
The topics of their lecture includes an introductory lecture on nano-technology to applications of nano-technology in biology to bio-sensing applications; nano-particles as building blocks for new materials; silicon based nano-sensors; disciplinary approaches to nano-medicine; synthesis of colloid nano-particles; as well as cell culture systems.
Thos who attended the workshop included Mehdi Kadivat (Iran); Nagib Ali (Libya); Dr Adel Ashraf, Dr Nur Ashkin, Dr Sidiq Ibrahim (Malaysia), Dr Rimi Khilfi (Tunisia), Hanif Muhammad Zubair and Dr Muhammad Fasial (Saudi Arabia) as well as 34 scientists from Pakistan.
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