Contributions by role
Contributions by subject area
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Ashfaq
Summary
Prof. Dr. Muhammad Ashfaq did his B.Sc(Hons) and M.Sc (Hons) Agriculture in Plant Pathology from University of Agriculture Faisalabad (UAF) with distinction and got Silver Medal. He did his PhD in 2007 from UAF and Post-Doctoral Fellowship in 2010 from Scottish Crop Research Institute (now James Hutton Institute), Dundee, Scotland. In 2004, he started his academic career at UAF and in 2006 he joined PMAS-Arid Agriculture University Rawalpindi and was promoted to the post of Associate Professor. In 2018, he joined MNS-University of Agriculture Multan (MNS-UAM) as a Professor of Plant Pathology and in 2019 he also assumed the additional charge of Principal Officer Students Affairs. In 2022, Dr. Ashfaq took over the charge as Director Institute of Plant Protection at MNSUAM.
He has two decade over an expertise in the field of Molecular Plant Pathology/Plant Virology. Dr. Ashfaq has a vast experience to convene and act as member of more than hundred professional, academician, research, development, policy/decision making, events organizing, scientific and managerial contributory and many more committees at university, national and international level. Dr. Ashfaq is also founder Editor-in-Chief of Agricultural Sciences Journal (ASJ), an official journal of MNSUAM and member of editorial board and Reviewer/referee of several National and International well-reputed peer-reviewed scientific journals and research projects funding agencies. He also has membership of many scientific organizations/societies. Dr. Ashfaq has also established two well equipped molecular plant virology laboratories in the Departments of Plant Pathology at PMAS-AAUR and MNSUAM. He is also actively involved in revising/improving syllabi of under-graduate and post-graduate courses of Plant Pathology. He has been actively involved in organizing the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th International Smart Plant Protection Conferences and many others at MNSUAM. He has received research awards and letters of appreciation many times in recognition of his valuable efforts and contribution to MNSUAM. He was also appreciated by the Islamic Organization for Food Security (OIC, Kazakhstan) for his distinguished expertise and contributions as a speaker in 2024. He has also established collaborations and linkages to foster research and academic diversity with well reputed national and international institutes/universities.
Dr. Ashfaq has completed seven projects as PI and presently, two projects (one funded by PARB and other by ACIAR) are ongoing. Dr. Ashfaq has 206 publications consisting of 98 research papers, 61 abstracts of scientific research papers, six popular articles, 16 book chapters, one abstract book, and 16 projects reports. He has credit to be reported three novel genes of RNA2 of TRV sym isolate and sequenced >150 genome sequences of new and existing plant viruses and other pathogens which are publicly available at the GenBank website. In addition to these, Dr. Ashfaq has significant role and contribution in the preparation of four university annual reports (2019-20, 2020-21, 2022-23, 2023-24), one University Business plan for Sustainable Growth-2023”, four Undergraduate Prospectus (As a Convener of undergraduate prospectus committee) Kissan Mela-2022 and one Mango festival report-2021. Dr. Ashfaq has produced eight PhD and 44 M.Sc. (Hons) theses as major supervisor. Currently, five PhD and seven M.Sc. (Hons) students are working under the major supervision of Dr. Ashfaq. Currently, he is taking keen interest for the Development of transgenic plants resistant to virus infection, Development of biological tools for monitoring microbial pollution of aquatic environment, Study of virus-encoded silencing suppressor proteins, Plant-Microbe Interactions, Biochemistry and Physiology of Diseased Plants, Epidemiology of Plant Viruses, and Integrated Disease Management including genotypes screening against viruses.