Hiiraan Online
Thursday, July 26, 2012
As one of the leading online news for Somalia, HOL is focused not only delivering the latest news from Somalia, but also desires to create a positive influence for its growing members and share with them interesting stories of individual achievements. As our job is to report the good and the bad, most often we found ourselves failing to recognize Somali individuals outside of political, sports and entertainment arenas, who may have been successful in their career lives.
In this month of Ramadan, we decided to embark into a new initiative which is featuring outstanding Somali individuals in all fields of work and we encourage our readers to solicit us successful professional individuals of Somali descent.
We believe that our readers deserve a better service, not just bombarding them with the usual chronic ugly news from Somalia. As we begin to dig individual stories, we are convinced there will be many outstanding stories to share with our readers. The first person we want to share his story is about a fellow Somali Scientist (Dr. Ali S. Faqi) who has recently edited a new scientific book that is scheduled to appear soon in the library shelves worldwide. The title of the book is “A Comprehensive Guide to Toxicology in Preclinical Drug Development”.
Because HOL is not known for science, our review is just limited on identifying the key pieces of the book plus a short bio of the editor. The book combines discovery toxicology and pre-clinical toxicology together and addresses the small and large molecules drug development process. It is designed for toxicologists in the pharmaceutical industry, in the regulatory world and in the academia.
Our main objective is to create a networking environment for our young generation, particularly those pursuing scientific career with the intent of mentoring, and encouraging them to be good scientists.
Ali Said Faqi, D.V.M., Ph.D., D.A.B.T is a Senior Director of Developmental and Reproductive Toxicology, a Senior Principal Scientist at MPI Research and an Adjunct Associate Professor at Wayne State University, School of medicine, Department of OBGYN in Detroit, MI. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig in Germany in 1995 and D.V.M. from Somali National University. He earned a diploma of specialization in Experimental Pharmacology from the University of Milan in Italy. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Free University of Berlin-Germany from 1996 till 1998. He worked as a Research Associate at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia and at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Before joining MPI Research, Dr. Faqi was a Senior Scientist at Allergan Pharmaceuticals in Irvine, California and a Research Toxicologist at IIT Research Institute in Chicago, Illinois.
He is a Diplomate of American Board of Toxicology (D.A.B.T.) and a member of the Editorial Board of Reproductive Toxicology Journal and ISRN Toxicology. He is also a member of Scientific Advisory Board of the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative (AAQI).
Dr. Faqi served as a Board of Scientific Counselors (BOSC) Computational Toxicology at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) from September, 2009-September, 2010. He is ad-hoc scientific reviewer for the scientific journals (Regulatory Pharmacology and Toxicology, Toxicology Journal, System Biology in Reproductive Medicine, Pesticide Biochemistry and Physiology, PLoS ONE and Birth Defects Research Part B: Developmental & Reproductive Toxicology).
Dr. Faqi is a past Chairman of the membership committee of the Teratology Society and a past President of Michigan Society of Toxicology. Currently he is the chairman of the Education Committee of the Teratology Society and the Vice President of Toxicologists of African Origin, a special interest group within the society of toxicology. He is a Visiting Professor at the University of Palermo, Italy. In 2009, Dr. Faqi was a guest Professor at King Fahd Medical Research Center in King Abdiaziz University, Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) where he lectured on Preclinical Toxicology.
He has published over 100 scientific papers and authored and co-authored 7 book chapters.