University of the Punjab.

Stem Cells Research Lab
Dr Azra Mehmood did her BSc (Hons.) in Animal Husbandry from University of Agriculture, Faisalabad and joined CEMB in 2004 as an MPhil research scholar and in 2006 continued to work towards PhD under the indigenous HEC scholarship program  at CEMB. She was awarded PhD in 2011. She did her PhD on role of endothelial progenitor cells in development and therapy of diabetic heart failure. During her MPhil and PhD she established culture conditions for Endothelial Progenitor Cells and prepared rat models of diabetes induced cardiomyopathy first time in Pakistan. During her PhD she worked at Stem Cells Research Group at Department of Pathology and Lab Medicine, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, USA for one year under mentorship of Professor Dr Muhammad Ashraf and Professor Dr Meifeng Xu. After submission of her PhD thesis she joined CEMB as Post Doc Fellow in 2009 and worked for the strengthening of stem cells research here at CEMB. She pioneered research on exploitation of therapeutic efficacy of cord derived stem cells in thermal /acid burns, diabetic and aging associated wounds, osteoarthritis and diabetes. She is currently working as Associate Professor at CEMB and leading Stem cells Therapeutics and Regenerative Medicine group at CEMB.
She with her PhD researchers, is the first one in Pakistan, to optimize conditions for culture of human cord tissue derived stem cells, skin keratinocytes and fibroblasts, chondrocytes, lipoaspirate, blood and urine derived stem cells, skin fibroblasts derived iPSCs; as well as optimized procedures for preparation of various models of skin burns, osteoarthritis, diabetes, hepatocellular carcinoma invivo and invitro (thermal/ acid burns, oxidative stressed stem cells/chondrocytes, and hyperglycemia models). She has developed various constructs of human keratinocytes and fibroblasts embedded PRP gel, fibroblasts loaded chitosan, and lipoaspirate or cord stem cells carrier chitosan/ elastin/ amniotic membrane scaffolds for wound healing. Besides, her research involves investigation of effects of various chemokines, growth factors, antioxidants, co-culture, differentiation and stem cells combinatorial procedures on stem cells functionality in normal and invitro stress models. She has also been involved in applied research since 2018 and has been investigating autologous lipoaspirate stem cells in clinical trials for skin regeneration.
She has been the recipient of Research Productivity award for the year 2016-17 by PCST (Pakistan Council for Science and Technology). She was awarded Travel grant of 1000$ for her poster presentation at Wound Healing Society, USA (2017).
She has received the Punjab University performance evaluation award for the year 2022, 2021, 2019, 2015, 2013. She is also recipient of HEC indigenous PhD scholarship by Higher Education Commission, Pakistan; and awardee of HEC-MPhil scholarship. She also received Workers Welfare Board Merit scholarship by Punjab government throughout her B.Sc.Hons. and FFC Model school scholarship during her intermediate. She is an adjunct faculty of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical university and reviewer of HEC grants.
She has produced several MPhil and nine PhD students, most of whom have (by HEC support) got research training from prestigious institutes worldwide such as Institute for Cell Engineering, John Hopkins, USA; Harvard Medical School, USA; Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), USA; Wellcome – MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, UK; University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
She has completed HEC funded SRGP, NRPU, and TDF grants. She has recently been awarded a European Foundation grant worth 125,000Euros for investigating mechanisms of renal metabolic memory in diabetes and therapeutic strategies to counter it.