Dr. Nasir Riaz (PhD Virology) Biography

Dr. Mohammed Nasir Riaz is serving as a lecturer in this department since January, 2012. Nasir's research is basically related to the molecular biology of viral infections and their diagnostics. During his M.Phil in the field of Virology & Immunology he worked in several national and international research projects on Molecular Virology and Epidemiology of viruses like Dengue and Hepatitis (HCV, HBV and HDV). Prior to this, he worked as Research Officer in a Molecular Diagnostic Lab from 2009 to 2011. He played a major role in the establishment of this lab and developing/optimizing different molecular diagnostic tests. Dr. Nasir has earned his PhD in 2021 working in Viral Immunology Systems Project (in the Kirby Institute, UNSW, Sydney) funded by Australian government, mainly NHMRC Australia and UNSW. His research focus was whole genome sequencing of RNA viruses and its applications to look into within host viral evolution, viral variants characterization on quasi-specie level, anti-viral drug resistance, virus-host immune-interaction and ultimately leading to effective vaccine design. He has been successful in developing quick, highly sensitive and cost-effective methodology to sequence whole viral genomes of Dengue and HCV. These methods are ferther being used for sequencing of COVID-19 genomes as well.

Academic Background

S.No	Degree Title	Institute	Degree Completion Year
1	B.Sc (Hons) Microbiology	Department of Microbiology, Hazara University, Mansehra	2008
2	M.Phil (Virology & Immunology)	Atta ur Rehman School of Applied Bio-Sciences, NUST, Islamabad	2011
3	Doctorate (PhD) in Molecular Virology and Immunology / Diagnostics	The Kirby Institute, Faculty of Medicine and Health, UNSW, Sydney	2021

Publications

S.No	Publication Title	Authors	Action
1	PCR-Based Molecular Diagnosis of Hepatitis Virus (HBV and HDV) in HCV Infected Patients and Their Biochemical Study	• Riaz MN, Faheem M, Anwar MA, Raheel U, Badshah Y, Akhtar H, Tamanna K, Tahir M, Sadaf Zaidi NuS, Qadri I	Click to View
2	A molecular evaluation of dengue virus pathogenesis and its latest vaccine strategies	• Faheem M, Raheel U, Riaz MN, Kanwal N, Javed F, Qadri I	Click to View
3	Medicinal Plants: A Repository of Antiviral Metabolites	• Hussain W, Haleem K S, Khan I, Tauseef I, Qayyum S, Ahmed B & Riaz MN.	Click to View
4	Dengue fever in the Indian Subcontinent: an overview.	• Raheel U, Faheem M, Riaz MN, Kanwal N, Javed F, Qadri I	Click to View
5	The first patient with hepatitis C genotype 8 infection in Australia	• Crawford L C, Whybrow D, Rodrigo C,Riaz N, Higgins G	Click to View
6	A single nested PCR method for full length dengue virus genome amplification followed by long read next generation sequencing	Rodrigo C, Adhikari T, Riaz N, Sigera PC, Bull R, Luciani F, Fernando SD, Rajapakse S, Weeratunga P, Fink K, Lloyd A	Click to View
7	Whole genome long read sequencing of hepatitis C virus and its applications	Muhammad Nasir Riaz1, Preston Leung1, Rowena Bull1, Kirston Barton2, Martin Smith2, Andrew Lloyd1, Chaturaka Rodrigo1	Click to View
8	Single molecule, near full-length genome sequencing of dengue virus	Adikari TN, Riaz N, Sigera C, Leung P, Valencia BM, Barton K, Smith MA, Bull RA, Li H, Luciani F et al	Click to View
9	Adaptation of Oxford Nanopore technology for hepatitis C whole genome sequencing and identification of within-host viral variants	Riaz N, Leung P, Barton K, Smith MA, Carswell S, Bull R, Lloyd AR, Rodrigo C	Click to View
10	Evolution of within-host variants of the hepatitis C virus	Riaz N, Leung P, Bull RA, Lloyd AR, Rodrigo C	Click to View