About
Professor Hasnain is a structural biologist with over 40 years of Synchrotron Radiation experience. He obtained a PhD in experimental Physics in 1976 from the University of Manchester on molecular crystals using synchrotron radiation. After spending a year as PDRA with Manchester, he joined DESY in Hamburg as a DESY Fellow working on the Storage ring Synchrotron Radiation Facility, HASYLAB.
In 1979, Professor Hasnain joined the UK’s effort of establishing the world’s first dedicated synchrotron radiation source (SRS) as a full time scientific staff member of the Daresbury national laboratory. In 1989, he established the Molecular Biophysics group at Daresbury, where he remained as head of the group until March 2008 when he moved to the University of Liverpool as Max Perutz Professor of Molecular Biophysics, where he established the Barkla X-ray laboratory of Biophysics. During 2011-2105, he was the International Lead for the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences of the University. He is co-Director of Barkla X-ray laboratory of Biophysics.
He is the founding Editor of the IUCr’s Journal of Synchrotron Radiation (1993). Since 2012, he is the Editor-in-Chief of the IUCr Journals. In 2014, he launched the IUCr’s flagship journal IUCrJ. He is also an Editor of the Current opinion in Structural Biology.
His main interest is in structure-function studies of proteins and their complexes that are involved in biological electron transfer, nitrogen cycles and neurodegenerative diseases. He has been involved in structure-based drug discovery targeted towards neurodegenerative diseases and malaria.