This time Scientific Bangladesh interviewed Dr/ Salequl Islam. He is an Associate Professor at Jahangirnagar University. He has some very good suggestions for young researchers. Here is what he says:
1. Scientific Bangladesh: Would you like to tell us about your academic and research life? In another way, how would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?
Dr. Salequl Islam: Current faculty (Associate Professor) cum researcher at the Department of Microbiology, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh.
2.Scientific Bangladesh: What has made you a researcher and/or a teacher? In another way, what is the story behind your becoming a researcher?
Dr. Salequl Islam: Nothing special. I found my family running through intense economic hardship from childhood. It drives me to study in a subject that will ensure a job easily. Then, being advised by a medical doctor relative, I got admitted into the Microbiology program at Dhaka University. Finishing undergrad (without earning my MS degree), I took a job at the Immunology Unit in ICDDR, B. That was the beginning of hands-on research activities that induced some research interest in me. But I always feel my job-commitment greater than research interest there. After one year of service in ICDDR, B, my employer, Dr. Firdausi Qadri, advised me to get admitted for a Master’s degree program at Microbiology, DU. She paid my full salary for the job during my whole master-level study. She made alternative planning for me so that I can do my lab work besides MS study. I decided to come back to Bangladesh after my higher studies and I came duly. I started to research again from my commitment to the present job. I feel I should train our students from the level-best. Secondly, I was getting obstacles directly and indirectly from some of my colleagues in JU. That hindrance increases my zeal and motivates me more to succeed in parallel to those antagonistic colleagues. I believe I have crossed their upper lines.
3.Scientific Bangladesh: How do you manage funds for research? From where you get funds for research?
Dr. Salequl Islam: I started grant-seeking in 2016 when I came back to Bangladesh after finishing my postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, USA. The first grant I got, was only BDT 16,000/= (equivalent to $200) from my host University’s internal source. I always carry my sincere honor to my start-up grant. Other grants I have been allocated: 1) University Grants Commission (UGC), Bangladesh. 2. Ministry of Science and Technology, Bangladesh. 3. Ministry of Education, Bangladesh, 4. Bangladesh Medical Research Council (BMRC), Bangladesh 5. The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Italy. 6. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) via Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS). The grant is known as ‘BAS-USDA’.
4.Scientific Bangladesh: Do you think Bangladeshi researchers apply enough for international funds?
Dr. Salequl Islam: I think, no. Only a handful of researchers from Bangladesh Agriculture University (BAU), Mymensingh, apply and secure International grants. I applied for Gate’s foundation grants and some other international grants several times. I could not succeed ever. Each time I was applying for those international grants, I had to apply with some shortfall of documents, it means, the applications were incomplete in a true sense. Therefore, it is difficult to understand the reasoning for my unsuccessful grant outcomes: I strongly believe the shortfall of documents was the main reason for the grant failure.
Almost all international grant authorities require two clear documents to apply for their grants: 1) Documents explaining financial management including last year’s audit report of the host institution-they want to be sure that their grants will be spent fairly following international standard systems. 2). Documents explaining human resources recruitments and management.
Unfortunately, none of the Public University except BAU in Bangladesh has made these essential documents (written in English) to get eligible to apply for International grants directly.
5.Scientific Bangladesh: Inadequate fund for research is a major problem in Bangladesh. What would you say in response to pointing fingers by many to this basic problem worldwide, not only in Bangladesh?
Dr. Salequl Islam: I agree solely that inadequate fund for research is a major problem in Bangladesh and worldwide. Despite the scarcity, the Bangladesh Government has increased research grants substantially in the last few years. However, some political nepotism and weak peer-reviewing systems allocate a big part of the research grant to pseudo-scientists. Further, weak monitoring systems of the awarded grants fail to impose accountability on those pseudo-scientists. By preventing outflow of the grant money to those dubious scientists could increase the grant amount to the potential authentic scientists.
6.Scientific Bangladesh: What is your research area? What type of research facilities/ infrastructures you have or developed over years and how?
Dr. Salequl Islam: During PhD program, I did the comprehensive basic research of coreceptor-utilization in HIV pathogenesis. During the Postdoc fellowship, I evaluated some inflammatory biomarkers among HIV/HBV/HCV infected intravenous drug users (IDU). Currently, I am focusing on evaluating what and how antimicrobial traits are transmitting from animal husbandry to humans in Bangladeshi settings. I have set a small microbiology lab (named ‘One Health Lab’) at the Department of Microbiology, Jahangirnagar University to execute my AMR study. The One Health lab is equipped with basic equipment and facilities to conduct typical microbiology and some molecular biology research. We have laminar airflow, a biosafety cabinet (class II), Microbiology incubator, weighing balance, autoclave machine, refrigerated benchtop centrifuge, light microscope, an ELISA reader, PCR thermal cycler, real-time PCR cycler (newly added), several refrigerators, freezers (-20C) and an ultra-freezer (-80C). All the equipment we have purchased over the last four/five years from the allocated research grants mentioned above.
Scientific Bangladesh: Tell us about your publications and patent, if any. Tell more about your most loved publication/s and/or patents.
Dr. Salequl Islam: Some recent (2020) publications are:
1. Salequl Islam, Umme Laila Urmi, Masud Rana, Fahmida Sultana, Nusrat Jahan, Billal Hossain, Samiul Iqbal, Md. Moyazzem Hossain, Abu Syed Md. Mosaddek, & Shamsun Nahar. “High abundance of the colistin resistance gene mcr‑1 in chicken gut‑bacteria in Bangladesh” Scientific Reports, October , 2020. 10:17292
2. Brian Godman, MAINUL HAQUE* , Salequl Islam, Samiul Iqbal, Umme Laila Urmi, Zubair Mahmood Kamal, ASM Shahariar Ahmed, Aminur Rahman, Mustafa Kamal, Monami Haque, Thuy Nguyen Thi Phuong, Hye-Young Kwon, Amanj Kurdi, Janney Wale and Israel Abebrese Sefah” Rapid assessment of price instability and paucity of medicines and protection for COVID-19 across Asia: findings and public health implications for the future ” Frontiers in Public Health, Accepted 15th October , 2020.
3. MAINUL HAQUE,Santosh Kumar, Jaykaran Charan, Rohan Bhatt, Salequl Islam, Siddhartha Dutta, Jha Pallavi Abhayanand, Yesh Sharma, Israel Abebrese Sefah, Amanj Kurdi, Janney Wale and Brian Godman. “Utilisation, availability and price changes of medicines and protection equipment for COVID-19 in India: findings and implications Short title: COVID-19 and price changes of treatments in India” Frontiers in Pharmacology, Accepted 14th October , 2020.
4. Mainul Haque, Judy McKimm, Massimo Sartelli, Sameer Dhingra, Francesco M Labricciosa, Salequl Islam, Dilshad Jahan, Tanzina Nusrat, Tajkera Sultana Chowdhury, Federico Coccolini, Katia Iskandar, Fausto Catena, Jaykaran Charan. “Strategies to Prevent Healthcare-Associated Infections: A Narrative Overview” Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, August, 2020.
5. Sameer Dhingra, Nor Azlina A Rahman, Ed Peile, Motiur Rahman, Massimo Sartelli, Mohamed Azmi Hassali, Tariqul Islam, Salequl Islam and MAINUL HAQUE*. “Microbial Resistance Movements: An Overview of Global Public Health Threats Posed by Antimicrobial Resistance, and How Best to Counter”. Front. Public Health, August 2020.
6. Salequl Islam, Mohammad Ali Moni, Atsushi Tanaka, and Hiroo Hoshino. “Magnesium Functions as Superior Co-factor for Measuring Reverse Transcriptase Activity of HIV-1, HIV-2, and SIV” European Journal of Medical and Health Sciences, Vol. 2:(4), August 2020. (Corresponding author).
7. Umme Laila Urmi, Shamsun Nahar, Masud Rana, Fahmida Sultana, Nusrat Jahan, Billal Hossain, Mohammed Shah Alam, Abu Syed Md. Mosaddek, Judy McKimm, Nor Azlina A Rahman, Salequl Islam, Mainul Haque. “Genotypic to Phenotypic Resistance Discrepancies Identified involving β-lactamase genes, blaKPC, blaIMP, blaNDM-1, and blaVIM in uropathogenic Klebsiella pneumoniae” Infections and Drug Resistance, 2020:13. 2863-2875. (Corresponding author).
8. Mainul Haque, Salequl Islam, Samiul Iqbal, Umme Laila Urmi, Zubair Mahmood Kamal, Aminur Rahman, Mustafa Kamal, Monami Haque, Iffat Jahan, Zakirul Islam, Mohammad Monir Hossain, Munzur-E-Murshid, Israel Sefah, Amanj Kurdi, Brian Godman. “Availability and price changes of potential medicines and equipment for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 among pharmacy and drug stores in Bangladesh; findings and implications.” Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science, Vol 19 Special Issue on Covid19, July 2020.
From the above listed, my loved ones are #1 and # 7.
8.Scientific Bangladesh: Do you have any research that has been commercialized? What should Bangladesh do to encourage the commercialization of research outputs?
Dr. Salequl Islam: I don’t have any currently. Probiotics from native strains could have the potentiality.
9.Scientific Bangladesh: Would you like to share your google scholar, LinkedIn, or any other profile?
Dr. Salequl Islam: Here it is: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=b8tVpt8AAAAJ&hl=en
10.Scientific Bangladesh: Tells us about research grants and awards you have obtained till now.
Dr. Salequl Islam: The first grant I got, was only BDT 16,000/= (equivalent to $200) from my host University’s internal source. Other grants I have been allocated:
1) University Grants Commission (UGC), Bangladesh.
2. Ministry of Science and Technology, Bangladesh.
3. Ministry of Education, Bangladesh,
4. Bangladesh Medical Research Council (BMRC), Bangladesh
5. The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Italy.
6. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) via Bangladesh Academy of Sciences (BAS). The grant is known as ‘BAS-USDA’.
The accumulated grant amount will be around 1.4 crore BDT. To note that a colleague of mine, Prof Dr. Shamsun Nahar, works with me. We combinedly have developed our ‘One Health Lab”. We work together.
11.Scientific Bangladesh: How important is the experience of working as an editor of a scientific Journal and reviewer? How is your experience in those cases?
Dr. Salequl Islam: I do not feel I am a good fit editor for a journal. I review some research papers and research grants periodically.
12.Scientific Bangladesh: How many researchers (PhDs and Masters) have you developed by this time? In other words, share your supervising story.
Dr. Salequl Islam: I supervised about 20 students of MS and M.phil levels. I am planning to recruit a PhD student very soon.
13.Scientific Bangladesh: What 1. qualities and 2. skills you expect in prospective researchers?
Dr. Salequl Islam: Dutiful, cooperative-having teamwork mindset, lifetime learner mindsets, truthful, patients
14.Scientific Bangladesh: What are the professional organizations of researchers you involved with? How important it is for researchers to join such professional bodies?
Dr. Salequl Islam: American Society for Microbiology (ASM), Bangladesh Society for Microbiologists (BSM). International AIDS Society (IAS). Some young researchers can get scholarships, fellowship, travel grants information.
15.Scientific Bangladesh: Do you think different professional bodies of scientists playing their due role in Bangladesh? What are your suggestions for the leading professional organizations of scientists?
Dr. Salequl Islam: I am not very satisfied, sometime disappointed with the activities of professional bodies of scientists (particularly Microbiology fields) in Bangladesh. I do not have suggestions to the BD professional bodies.
My suggestions to young researchers: stay away from active political attachment in your profession; try to work in your favorite field with some small projects; try to make collaborations with like-minded researchers; try to write small local grants; learn to spend research fund generously (remember, it is not your personal money,), don’t grab it tightly for future; don’t go for self-promotion until you have good position; let your work speak for you.
16.Scientific Bangladesh: How important is leadership ability to become a great researcher? Should researchers take leadership training? Did you ever get training on Leadership?
Dr. Salequl Islam: It is important to have leadership ability to become a successful researcher. PI/project leader needs to utilize his/her manpower to target-oriented projects. He/she should have some far sighting or far-thinking. He/she should know some project breakdown structure with time-bound targets. Researchers should take some training. Yes, I took some modules of leadership training and project implementation training.
17.Scientific Bangladesh: If asked what will be your three suggestions for the Science Ministry of Bangladesh?
Dr. Salequl Islam: 1) Eliminate personal/political nepotism to the Science Ministry projects and activities.
2) Allocate projects via a trustworthy board to ensure a possible fair peer-reviewing system.
3) Ensure the accountability of allocated projects.
18.Scientific Bangladesh: Doing Research is a stressful job. What do you do to manage stress? do you exercise regularly?
Dr. Salequl Islam: Personally, I used to play lawn tennis. It gives a real remedy for stressful situations. Now I try to walk and do some light exercise. To keep motivation and harmony, we used to make some small party with our lab research students: periodically we go outside for having some street foods (fuska, chotpati, grill chicken, etc) together. I cannot maintain these activities in the new normal COVID-19 period.
19. Scientific Bangladesh: Would you want to contribute regularly in Scientific Bangladesh and have a profile as an Author? If yes, then register athttps://scientificbangladesh.com/registration-2/
Dr. Salequl Islam: Thanks. Not now.
Scientific Bangladesh: We look forward to your regular contributions in the future.
