The Department of Biotechnology (DBT) of Central University of South Bihar (CUSB) organised a seminar on Plasmodium falciparum in which a talk was delivered by Dr. Zeba Rizvi on April 27, 2023. Public Relation Officer (PRO) Md. Mudassir Alam said that Dr. Zeba Rizvi is an alumnus of CUSB and very soon she will be joining Scripps Research (previously known as The Scripps Research Institute), San Diego, California (USA) for fully funded postdoctoral work. During the seminar the faculty members of the department Prof. Durg Vijai Singh (Head), Prof. Rizwanul Haque, Prof. Rakesh Kumar, Dr. Jawaid Ahsan, Dr. Nitish Kumar and Dr. Krishna Prakash were present along with research scholars and MSc students.
She was welcomed and felicitated by Prof. Durg Vijai Singh, while Dr. Jawaid Ahsan who was the M.Sc. Dissertation guide of Dr. Rizvi introduced her to the audience. He said that Dr. Rizvi has completed her PhD from the Malaria Research Lab of the prestigious CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad.
Dr. Zeba Rizvi started her talk by expressing her gratitude to the Head, faculty members and students of the department. In the seminar she talked about her recent research work on Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest species of Plasmodium that causes malaria in humans and most of the deaths due to malaria. There is increasing resistance in these parasites for available drugs and therapies. She said that her research is focused on investigating the atypical cell cycle of the human malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum as well as identifying and characterizing potential cell cycle regulators to block the parasite development, and hence treat malaria. The seminar was followed by an interactive session with the students present in the hall. Dr. Rizvi shared useful tips for preparing for various competitive exams like CSIR UGC JRF, DBT JRF, GATE etc. She also motivated students to go to reputed research institutes for higher studies and explained the process of getting selected in Scripps Research, one of the best research institutions in the USA.
During her PhD, Dr. Rizvi had trained multiple research scholars to safely isolate and process viral RNA from patient samples for RT-PCR based COVID-19 diagnosis during the beginning of COVID-19 outbreak in India from March-July, 2020 as an institutional effort to support the overburdened national medical infrastructure.