Member Name: Muhammad Tariq

Title: Associate Professor of Life Sciences

Qualifications: Ph.D., Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Switzerland
M.Phil., Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad and NIBGE, Faisalabad
B.Sc. (Hons), University of Agriculture, Faisalabad

Phone: + 92 (42) 356 08218 Ext: 8218

Fax: + 92 (42) 356 08303

E-Mail: m.tariq@lums.edu.pk

Research Interests: Epigenetic Gene Regulation in Development and Diseases

Biography: Muhammad Tariq received his PhD in Molecular Cell Biology from Friedrich Miescher Institute (FMI) for Biomedical Research, Basel, Switzerland. In 2003, he joined Renato Paro’s laboratory as a post-doctoral fellow at Zentrum fuer Molekulare Biologie Heidelberg (ZMBH), Germany. He was awarded EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization) long term fellowship for his postdoctoral studies at ZMBH. From 2006-2009 he worked as an Oberassistant at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, an ETH Zurich department in Basel, Switzerland.

His research interests include epigenetic gene regulation during development and molecular link between epigenetics and disease development. To pursue his research interests, he will primarily focus on a paradigm based on Polycomb group (PcG) and Trithorax group (TrxG) proteins using Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) and mammalian cultured cells. The PcG/TrxG proteins act at the level of chromatin and are involved in cell fate determination and maintenance of cellular identity during development.

Publications: Tariq, M., Nussbaumer, U., Chen, Y., Beisel, C and Paro, R. (2009). Trithorax requires Hsp90 in maintenance of active chromatin at sites of gene expression. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 106:1157-1162

Habu, Y., Mathieu, O., Tariq, M., Probst, A., Smathajitt, S., Zhu T and Paszkowski, J. (2006). Epigenetic regulation of transcription in intermediate heterochromatin. EMBO rep. 7:1279-1284

Tariq, M* and Paszkowski, J. (2004). DNA and histone methylation in plants. Trends in Genetics, 20:244-251

Bowler, C., Benvenuto, G., Laflamme, P., Molino, D., Probst, A., Tariq, M., Paszkowski, J. (2004). Chromatin techniques in plant cells. The Plant J. 39:776-789

Tariq, M*., Saze, H., Probst, A V., Lichota, J., Habu, Y. and Paszkowski, J. (2003). Erasure of CpG methylation in Arabidopsis alters patterns of histone H3 methylation in heterochromatin. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100:8823-8827.
Faculty of 1000: evaluations for Tariq et al Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 100, 8823-8827 http://www.f1000biology.com/article/id/1014373/evaluation

Tariq, M*., Habu, Y. and Paszkowski, J. (2002). Depletion of MOM1 in non-dividing cells of Arabidopsis plants releases transcriptional gene silencing. EMBO reports 3:951-955