Chairman, Department of Anatomy, University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan

Biograph
Prof Anas Sarwar Qureshi is a renowned professor of biomedical sciences with almost 32 years teaching, research and management experience at university level. His most recent passion has been the “Development of new treatments for brain arteriovenous malformations in collaboration with the Neurosurgery Dept., The Australian School of Advanced Medicine, Macquarie Uni, Sydney, Australia.

Prof Qureshi is PhD from Hannover and AvH postdoc from Bonn University Germany. He was the National Coordinator of EU-Asia-Link Project between Pakistan, Germany and the UK funded by European Union.

Prof Qureshi has supervised 6 PhDs and 72 MSc Hons/ MPhil candidates. He has published more than 200 scientific publications, 4 textbooks and several chapters in internationally published books. Prof. Qureshi has traveled to more than 30 countries to represent Pakistan at int‘l scientific forums. Currently, he is Chairman Department of Anatomy University of Agriculture Faisalabad Pakistan.



Speech Title: Weaning-induced stress inhibits the activities of leukocyte lysosomal enzymes in buffalo-calves

Abstract: Weaning is a strong psychological stressor for buffalo-calves which is considered to be a potential cofactor in the pathogenesis of infectious diseases. Influences of stressors on immune responses are complex and depend not only on the characteristics of the stressor (i.e. its nature, duration and frequency), but also on the time at which stressor is applied in relation to the immune response. A total of 60 buffalo calves of either sex, aged 3 months, were used in this study. Total contingent was divided into three groups viz., treated, placebo and untreated comprising of 10 calves (5 male and 5 female) for each type of weaning protocol. The blood was collected 2 and 1 day before and 1 and 14 days after weaning in all groups. These blood samples were used to evaluate the effects of weaning, sex, sampling time, on nine different leukocyte lysosomal enzymes including four dipeptidyl peptidases (DPPI, DPPII, DPPIII, and DPIV), cathepsin D, alanine peptidase, elastase, N-acetyl-glycosaminidase (NAGAL) and β-glucuronidase. The activities of the lysosomal enzymes were determined with the help of the spectrofluorometric micro method using appropriate 4-methylumbellifryl glucosides. The activity of cathepsin D was estimated by the azocasein method. Serum cortisol concentration was measured using an enzyme immunoassay kit to measure the level of stress. Weaning suppressed the activities of DPPII, DPPIV, cathepsin D and NAGL. Sex made no effect on any of the enzyme. Correlation coefficient analysis revealed that cathepsin D is highly significantly negatively (P<0.005) correlated with serum cortisol level. These data suggest that the major effects of weaning-induced stress are inhibitory on the activities of leukocyte lysosomal enzymes in foals.