Profile

Dr. Surtaj obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2005.  For his postdoctoral fellowship he worked at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York City followed by the Cancer Research Institute at Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada. He also worked as a Research Associate at the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago.

Dr. Surtaj held an Assistant Professor position at South Dakota State University for 6.5 years before joining the Medical Sciences Department at AUIS in 2021. At South Dakota State University, Dr. Surtaj was the Principal Investigator and Director of his laboratory. He successfully established a novel and translational research program that created various opportunities for obtaining extramural funding, connecting with scientists from different areas of research, building partnerships with private industry, filing invention disclosures and obtaining patent protection for his discoveries.

Dr. Surtaj has 25 years of research and teaching experience from the top universities in the United States and Canada. He supervised and provided research training to 5 postdoctoral fellows, 19 post-graduate students, more than 70 undergraduate students and 12 laboratory technicians. Dr. Surtaj graduated 5 doctoral students from his lab as major advisor. He published 26 articles in highly reputable journals and has a cumulative impact factor of 124. He also presented his research in 44 conferences in the United States, Canada and Europe. Dr. Surtaj secured a total of $835,000 in research grants and funds as Principal Investigator. Served as a member of BioSystems Networks and Translational Research (BioSNTR), a 40-faculty, multi-institutional collaboration which received a $30 million grant during 2015-2020.

Dr. Surtaj’s scientific work has received remarkable recognition in local, national and international news media. Due to his growing reputation in the field, he is routinely invited and reviewed 42 scientific manuscripts for international journals and served as an editorial board member for 4 peer-reviewed scientific journals. He also served in the Editorial Board as Topic Editor for the journal 'Pharmaceutics''. His research scholarship has resulted in his place as an internationally respected scientist.

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