Zeba Islam Seraj

Academic career

Seraj studied at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh obtaining a B.Sc. in 1980. She completed her M.Sc. from the same university in 1982. She obtained her PhD in Biochemistry from University of Glasgow in 1986 and went to University of Liverpool for post-doctoral work in the following year. After completing her post-doc she joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Dhaka in 1988. She became an associate professor in 1991 and later a professor in 1997 at the same university. She has been supervising Plant Biotechnology projects funded by foreign and local grants as a Principal Investigator since 1991.

Research activities

Seraj has established a well-equipped Plant Biotechnology laboratory at the University of Dhaka. She is a co-principal investigator of a project in the Generation Challenge Program (GCP)—an initiative to use molecular biology to help boost agricultural production. Seraj has worked on fine mapping of the major QTLs for salinity tolerance in Pokkali, a traditional rice landrace and application of markers to aid breeding programs for incorporation of salinity tolerance in rice. She also works on developing genetically modified rice varieties with improved salt tolerance suitable for growing in the coastal region of Bangladesh.

Seraj has been a visiting scientist in PBGB, IRRI (Constructs for salinity tolerance with Dr. John Bennett Jan-March 1998), PBGB & CSWS Division, IRRI(IRRI-PETRRA Bangladesh project on development of MV rice for the coastal wetlands of Bangladesh. June 11–29, 2002 and June 16–20, 2003), USDA research station at Beaumont, Texas, USA ( Aug. 4-16, 2003) and at the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, University of Texas, Austin, USA as Norman Borlaug Fellow (August 15-December 15, 2005).