The Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience
Please welcome Dr. Ayesha Saeed to the Whitney Laboratory. She joined the Loesgen Lab as a short term Ph.D. Research Scholar.
Ayesha received a prestigious six-month research award (IRSIP) by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan-Islamabad, to complete her part of Ph.D. research work at the Whitney Lab. Being one of few women in chemistry in Pakistan, she works actively against gender discrimination at the workplace and hopes to inspire other females to enter STEM disciplines.
Ayesha completed her Masters and MPhil in Applied Chemistry with specialization in organic chemistry from the University in Pakistan and joined a Pharmaceutical Company as Raw Material Analyst. She worked as a chemist at the Lahore Museum and then joined the Punjab Information Technology Board as Preservation Officer.
Currently, she is a Ph.D. Research Scholar at the Department of Chemistry at Lahore College for Women University in synthetic organic chemistry focusing on the synthesis of benzothiazine-based analogues as potential bioactive molecules. These analogues have promising applications as pharmaceuticals, in agriculture, and as dyes.
Since she experienced the loss of family member due to diabetes and cancer, she decided to work on anticancer medicines where chemists are at the forefront of small molecule drug development. At Whitney Lab, Ayesha will complete her benzothiazine synthesis project, characterize these novel compounds, and perform biological assays.