Farkhanda Khowaja

Dr. Khowaja is a Geneticist and biotechnologist and has over six years of experience in Quality Assurance Management. Farkhanda obtained a BSc in Plant Breeding and Genetics (Gold Medalist) from Sindh Agriculture University in Pakistan and had received “Overseas Development Association Shared Scholarship Scheme Award” to pursue MSc in Biotechnology from Imperial College of University of London at Wye, UK. From University of Aberdeen in Scotland, she completed PhD research in Molecular Genetics in 2005, where she continued working for 3 years as Postdoctoral Research Fellow on EU funded project to collaborate between 8 different countries including France, Netherlands, Italy, UK, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and China on studying molecular genetics of drought resistance in cereal crops for “developing drought-tolerant cereals to support efficient water management in the Mediterranean area”. In Canada, Dr. Khowaja joined Agriculture Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge Research Centre in Alberta in 2008 on NSERC visiting fellowship program and worked on Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology of bioproducts and bioprocesses in transgenic triticale for 3 years. After working as research scientist for Phytocentric Biotech Inc. at Molecular Laboratory of Lethbridge Community College for more than a year to develop simple and cost-effective methods of DNA delivery into microalgae nuclear genome using cargo peptides to cross the cell-wall barrier, she continued her career in Quality Management and worked at Medma Cannabis Pharms Inc. for more than five years.