Fellow

Prof. Haseena Khan

(Fellow, 2002)

Professor Haseena Khan was born on 1 May, 1954 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

She got General School Certificate (GCE) “O” Level St. Francis Xaviers School Dec. 1970; HSC, Holy Cross College, Dhaka 1973; B.Sc. (Hons.) (1976); M.Sc. in Biochemistry (1977), Dhaka University; Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, University of Sussex, England, 1985. She pursued her Ph.D. degree (1982-1985) under a fellowship supported by the Association of Commonwealth Universities at University of Sussex, UK. From 1985–86 she was involved in post-doctoral research at the Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire, INRA-CNRS, Castanet-Tolosan, France, supported by Elf-Bio Recherche. From March 1991-September 1991 she worked as a research fellow at the Nitrogen Fixation Laboratory, University of Sussex, Sussex, UK (Fellowship provided by the British Council, UK). From 1992–1995 she worked as a research associate (supported by a fellowship of the Medical Research Council of Canada) at the Reproduction Research Laboratory, Clinical Research Institute of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Haseena Khan received the Independence Day Award for research and Training in 2019. She has also been awarded the Bangladesh Academy of Science-M.O. Ghani Memorial Gold Medal in 2011 and the Kazi Mahbubullah Gold Medal in 2015 and Moni Singh- Farhad Memorial Trust Award, 2016 for her contribution to jute molecular biology and genome sequencing. Her work has also been recognized by Dhoritri, Bangladesh in December 2019. Because of her outstanding contributions in teaching and research she has been appointed as the UGC professorship in 2021.

She has more than 90 publications and many book chapters.

At the present working as one of the editors of “The Jute Genome”, Publisher: Springer.

Prof. Haseena was the first Chairperson of the Department of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Dhaka. Served as the Chairperson of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Dhaka. She has also been instrumental in setting up the Marine Biotechnology Department at the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Maritime University which started its program on October 2018 and had helped in developing its syllabus. The Government of Bangladesh has used her expertise in the development of biotechnology in the country. As one of the two scientists, she has served in the first National Executive Committee on Biotechnology, (2004-2006) chaired by the Principal Secretary of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh and advised on the application of biotechnology in national development. As a consultant she helped in the development of the National Biotechnology Guidelines. She presently serves as a member of the Board of Governors, of the National Institute of Biotechnology and had been a member of the Forensic DNA Laboratory Advisory Council (2016-2018) and is now a member of the National Technical Committee on Biotechnology (2016 – till date). She had been on the Board of Studies (2016 – 2018), Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, South Asian University (an International University sponsored by the eight Member States of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, SAARC, of which Bangladesh is a member), New Delhi, India.

Dr Haseena Khan was a Visiting Professor, at the South Asian University (SAARC University), New Delhi, India for one year (January -December 2012).

She is a member of TWAS (The World Academy of Sciences), Founding Member of GNOBB (Global Network of Bangladeshi Biotechnologists)

She visited USA, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan.