INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR CHEMICAL

On the retirement of Professor Salimuzzaman Siddiqui FRS as Chairman PCSIR, his services were taken up by the University of Karachi and a "Postgraduate Institute of Chemistry" was established under his Directorship in 1966 in a wing of the Department of Chemistry. PCSIR provided the services of some of its staff (including Dr. Viqar Uddin Ahmad and Dr. Zafar H. Zaidi) and furniture during the initial phase of the establishment of this institute. Prof. Atta-ur-Rahman joined the institute after completing his PhD from University of Cambridge (UK) in 1968 and was later appointed as Co-Director. A generous donation was offered to the University for the Institute by the leading philanthropist/industrialist Mr. Latif Ebrahim Jamal H.I. on behalf of the Husein Ebrahim Jamal Foundation in 1976, the largest donation at that time in the history of the country. The Institute was accordingly named as "Husein Ebrahim Jamal Research Institute of Chemistry", in the memory of late Mr. Husein Ebrahim Jamal a leading industrialist and philanthropist. Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman, later he accepted a 4-year assignment as a Fellow of Kings College, Cambridge University. He was then sent by Cambridge University to the University of Karachi during 1971-74 to assist in the setting up of a modern postgraduate institute of chemistry, and he brought with him donations of gas chromatograph, balances and a combustion microanalyser from Cambridge University. Dr. Atta-ur-Rahman succeeded in obtaining grants to acquire a new mass and NMR spectrometers, both of which were installed in 1973, within a year of his return to Pakistan. He was appointed as the Co-Director in 1977. He succeeded in winning several major projects for the institute from the West, which have transformed the institute into the finest center in Asia and one of the best in the world in the field of Natural Product Chemistry. He was appointed as the Director in January 1990, while Professor Viqar Uddin Ahmad took over as Co-Director in 1990. In 2000, Professor Bina S. Siddiqui was appointed as the Co-Director on the retirement of Professor Ahmad.