Dr. Bibi Hajira
BSc (Hons) Human Nutrition
MPhil (Human Nutrition)
PhD Human Nutrition (Pak)
I did my BSc (Hons) Human Nutrition from The University of Agriculture, Peshawar. I was one of the top students of my batch securing 2nd position in the Faculty of Nutrition Sciences and overall university 3rd position. After, I got my MPhil from the same alma mater, I joined Institute of Kidney Diseases, Peshawar, as Clinical Nutritionist. Later on, I did my PhD from the Department of Human Nutrition, The University of Agriculture, Peshawar.
During my PhD degree I worked on the development of novel foods using underutilized cereal grains by replacing wheat. I worked on the development of a novel composite bread using sorghum and barley grains with potential to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation in human subjects. In addition, I worked on the in-vitro gastrointestinal digestion of the novel bread to predict its glycemic and hydrolysis indices. Additionally, I worked to determine the glycemic and insulinemic responses of the novel composite breads. I also published research papers in impact factor journals from my PhD work. During my PhD work, I also guided various MSc (Hons) students in their research projects.
In May 2019, I joined Institute of Basic Medical Sciences (IBMS), Khyber Medical University, Peshawar as Assistant Professor of Human Nutrition. Since, then I have been involved in teaching various courses and supervising research students. I am teaching Human Nutrition courses to the MPhil scholars including clinical nutrition, community nutrition and fundamentals of human nutrition. I have supervised 06 MPhil Students and currently, I am supervising 15 MPhil students. Beside supervision, I am actively involved in research. I have been a co-investigator in NRPU project on the “Development of Validated Dietary Assessment Tool for Pakistan (DietPak)”. I have also been an external examiner for MPhil students at various universities of KPK offering Human Nutrition programs.
Beside academics, I am involved in several administrative activities including MPhil Coarse coordinator for IBMS, focal Person Human Nutrition Department IBMS for various activities including QEC MPhil program reviews and SARs, updating MPhil coarse document and development of PhD course document and other activities.
My current research focuses on the effect of various dietary intervention studies on satiety, weight loss and biomarkers of cardiometabolic health in clinical trials. I am also interested in nutrigenomic studies exploring the effect of diet on the expression of genes in humans, and how an individual's genetic makeup affects the metabolism and response to nutrients and other bioactive components in food. In this regard, we have conducted a study on the effect of high protein dietary intervention in FTO-gene polymorphism in collaboration with Institute of Pharmacology.
I have been actively involved in updating and compilation of MPhil Human Nutrition course document in collaboration with Dr. Khalid Iqbal. We have also worked along with other universities of KPK to harmonize the MPhil Human Nutrition program Curriculum through consultative workshops since November 2022. In addition, we have incorporated basic and applied nutrition courses in Nursing and Allied Health Sciences curriculum. The next plan is to incorporate nutrition in medical curriculum as well.
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