We are proud to announce that Ayesha Rifath, a Research Assistant at TRIPM and Master of Drug Discovery (MDD) student at GMU, recently presented her research at the 2nd Al Ain University International Conference on Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences and the 3rd Al Ain University Health and Biomedical Postgraduate Symposium. The conference took place on January 22-23, 2025, at Al Ain University’s Abu Dhabi Campus, UAE.
Ayesha’s poster presentation was on evaluating the hypoxia-UHRF1 axis in pancreatic cancer. Hypoxia, a prevalent feature in pancreatic cancer, underlies its aggressiveness and resistance to therapy, while UHRF1 is an epigenetic modulator known to be overexpressed in this disease and is associated with worse patient outcomes. Ayesha’s findings, however, showcase a possible dual role for UHRF1, wherein it was found to be downregulated in hypoxia at both the transcriptional and translational levels. This downregulation was further shown to be due to a novel HIF1α-UHRF1 axis which could further contribute to PDAC pathogenesis.
Ayesha’s participation in the conference, a major interdisciplinary collaboration uniting experts from pharmacy, nutrition, and biomedical sciences, highlights the high-quality research emerging from GMU and strengthens the university’s reputation for innovation and academic excellence.