Research work and Scopes of collaboration

Areas of Interest

 

My research interests are focused on the following areas:

• Understanding the therapeutic solutions for neuronal cell death from diseases such as stroke and Alzheimer disease.
• Design and development of pharmaceutical formulations and study of their stability.
• Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)

 

Join my Small Research Projects

Click here to open the instruction file in PDF format

1. What do I offer in this project?

About me:

I have seventeen years’ experience in the field of pharmacy as student, professional, researcher (doctoral and post-doctoral) and as educator. Not only Bachelor, Master or PhD in Pharmaceutical sciences, I possess a three-year Diploma in Information Technology, and know multimedia, web programming, animation and essential tools of modern SOTL to a professional extent. My broad spectrum research interests span from pharmaceutical formulation development, product analysis and stability to SOTL and pharmacy practice. I am member to various professional associations including the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS), International Association of Compounding Pharmacists (IACP), American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), American Heart Association (AHA) and so on. I have various small projects in my list in any of which I can fit an eligible pharmacy student. I conduct distant collaboration with investigators both from US and foreign pharmacy schools.

What do you get from the project:

This is a voluntary research project where you won’t receive any financial benefit. However, you can gain something that money can’t buy for you.
i. Collaborate national and international peer investigators.
ii. Learn how to conduct literature search to obtain answer to your questions.
iii. Learn bibliography management program such as EndNote (paid) and Zotero (free).
iv. Be able to apply knowledge of applied statistics in data analysis and result interpretation.
v. Utilize tools such as MS Excel and Graphpad Prism to perform statistical calculation and generate graphs.
vi. Be able to write scientific abstracts or even manuscripts.
vii. Select suitable journal for publishing your work. Understand their requirements.
viii. Master techniques of preparing poster in simple software such as MS Powerpoint.
ix. Publish in non-peer reviewed or peer-reviewed journals. In simpler word, get your own publication that will be a life-long bullet point in your CV.

2. Are you eligible?

If your answers to both of the following questions are YES, then you simply qualify.

• Do you have passion or serious interest in small research work?
• Will you be able to spare at least 4 hours a week to dedicate for this work? Quiz/exam weeks may be exempted, since we want to make the project full of fun, not an enervating onus.

If your answers to the above questions are YES & YES, then welcome aboard!

How does the project move?

3. Determine a working problem or research proposal

I will provide you a project to work on. If you have your own one, I will be very happy to consider and see we can move on with that. Leave this part on me.

4. Literature search

Understanding the current situation about the problem we are working on is the heart of the project. For that, we have to search literature for contemporary and old articles’ data, result and claim. An effective literature searching skill does not grow overnight, but surely I will guide you in details. I will show you a number of techniques, such as:

• Searching directly in Google Scholar
• Searching within a journal using Google Chrome's extension of site:
• Finding an old article and tracking the articles that cited that.

The third part mentioned above takes the longest time. But it’s a great investment of time.

5. Branching from main project

The Literature Search (point 4 above) is one of the most important steps and usually goes on throughout the project till manuscript is submitted. The working problem that we set in point 3 remains palpable and open to be modified. It is possible that you’ll find attractive topics during your journey with the project (especially while searching literatures), which you initially did not think about. This is how students often start one project but end up with multiple side projects, and each of them gain substantial volume over time.

6. Collaboration medium

You will be given access to a shared Google spreadsheet file in which you and other collaborators will summarize their work. You will also need to install Team Viewer software so that you can get instant help from me or other collaborators regarding the programs or work in your local computer.
Google Hangout or Skype will be frequently used for brainstorming sessions.

7. Literature management tool

If you can, please install Endnote. Otherwise, a less powerful but free software Zotero will serve the need. Our searched articles need to be gathered in a certain place so that we can better coordinate among us. Zotero and Endnote support collaboration and sync-ing.
When saving an article, we give it a name in this style:

{yyyy} {blank space} {Full name of the article} .pdf

Here is an example:

2016 Is independent compounding gradually growing in Southern Texas?.pdf

Note that, we don’t include author or journal name as a part of our file name. Maintain this format, always.

Please let me know what full text you need. I will have it collected through the library of Appalachian College of Pharmacy.

8. Weekly meeting

It is important that we meet once a week and present our progress from the last meeting. Also, we determine target of the next week and thereby move on. The shared Google spreadsheet will be required to be updated on a regular basis.
You may meet me at my office if you are a current student of ACP. Otherwise, Skype or Google Hangout meetings may be arranged.

9. Lab experiments

This section is applied if you are an ACP student and working in person in my lab.

9.1. Safety Training

Obtain Lab Safety Training from Ms. Prema Rao ([email protected]) and have my signature in it. You will be primarily working in the compounding and research labs located in the Garden Hall.

9.2. Equipment Training

You will be trained by me or any of my lab associates about how to use the equipments in the lab. You will also learn how to prepare reagents, buffers and samples for conducting the experiments.

9.3. Hard copy of data and activities log

All activities in the lab should be hand-written in the log book (not in electronic file). All working sheets should be printed and hand-filled. As soon as data are finalized (UV, HPLC or NIR), they should be printed and saved in the data folder stored in my office.

9.4. Data files naming

Files are named like

{yyyy-mm-dd} {Full file name} .extension

Here is an example:

2017-03-02 Lidocaine gel diffusion summary.docx

Folders will be named with project name at the beginning, not with date.

10. Data analysis

I will be performing the data analysis and statistical calculation using MS Excel and Graphpad Prism. You will be also trained to use these tools so that you can perform data analysis in the initial level.

11. Manuscript versions

Draft

Draft manuscript will be written by me in case if you are not sure how to start writing. But I strongly encourage you to read various scientific articles and observe their art of writing. Again, this skill does not develop overnight, and requires years of practice.
Draft manuscript will be written in Google Doc if it is done by you or any of the collaborators. In such case please include year, first author’s name and first few words of the article as the citation, so that we can edit it later in Endnote. Here’s an example: DEG poisoning has occurred in recent years (2010, Betts, Toxic excipients killing …).

Final Manuscript

Pre-submission manuscript will be written by me. You will receive it for reviewing when finished.

12. Authorship

You will be an author of the submitted manuscript. Based on the amount of contribution to the project, the position of the author will be determined. This article describes the well-established rule in academia: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3010799

Ghost authorship

You may discuss your projects to various people including your teachers. No matter how much enthusiasm and moral support they lend you, we cannot offer him authorship unless there is significant contribution into the project. Their help may be acknowledged in the article, however, otherwise.

13. Pause or discontinuation of the project

You may wish to give a break in your project or completely withdraw yourself. In either case, you will need to discuss upfront. If you perform a significant part of the project and then the team as a whole complete it, you will receive authorship based on the contribution.

14. Projected timeline

A total of 5 to 8 weeks from the beginning to completion of the project. We want our final manuscript to be submitted within 60 days of the first “brainstorming session”. 
If you agree to the points mentioned in this file, please confirm me by email at [email protected]

Carrying on the distant research projects (Things to do in first two weeks of the project)

Click here to open the instruction file in PDF format

Watch this video to quickly understand how to use the PDF file:

 

 

Things to do in your first two weeks as a new researcher in Dr. Rashid’s Lab.

The whole project at a glance:

 

Current Projects

Current research projects

• Extemporaneous compounding of topical analgesics with superior permeation properties.
• Stability study of compounded pharmaceutical products in Appalachian regions.
• Impact of audiovisual passive learning on compounding product quality and long-term retention of compounding knowledge.
• Assessment of the feasibility of (1) introduction of IPPE/EPPE to an IPPE/EPPE-naïve pharmacy education system and (2) exploring new APPE clinical rotation site for ACPE in infectious disease research center in Bangladesh.
• Compounding errors: source and means of prevention.
• Understanding the effectiveness of incorporating Pharmaceutical Compounding Learning through faculty-mentored institution-centered students' organizations and extracurricular activities.

Project(s) likely to start in future

• Understanding the tendency of using off label drugs in cerebral strokes in acute clinical conditions in Bangladesh. 

 

 

 

 

How to join my projects

Please send me an email at [email protected] with brief information about you and areas you want to work on. I recommend you send a CV attached. I can also be reached at my office by calling (276) 498 5241.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Protocols and Methods

Links in the following table open in new tabs of your browser.

 

No.	Name	Application	Link
1	HPLC	Chromatographic analysis	OPEN
2	UV-Vis Spectrophotometer	Detection of certain range of molecules	OPEN
3	PDA reader	Photodiode array detection	OPEN
4	Franz Cell	Transdermal diffusion simulator	OPEN