Md Delwar Hossen, a pharmacy student and alumnus of Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), has moved from representing a research organisation on campus to coordinating a project documenting the phytochemical properties of Bangladesh’s medicinal plants.

Delwar is currently pursuing a Master of Pharmacy (M Pharm) in Pharmacology and Clinical Pharmacy at IUB’s School of Pharmacy and Public Health. He previously completed his Bachelor of Pharmacy (B Pharm) from the university.

His journey into research began when he joined Dawn of Bioinformatics Limited Bangladesh as a campus ambassador. He was later named the organisation’s Best Campus Ambassador 2024 before being appointed project coordinator of the Bangladeshi Medicinal Plant Phytochemicals Database (BMPPD).

Developed over two years of research at Dawnilab, the research hub of Dawn of Bioinformatics, BMPPD is described as South Asia’s largest database of medicinal plant phytochemicals and the first curated database focused specifically on Bangladesh’s medicinal flora.

The database brings together information on more than 700 medicinal plants and thousands of phytochemical records in a searchable platform. It is intended to serve researchers, academics and pharmaceutical scientists working in areas such as natural-product research and early-stage drug discovery.

For Delwar, what began as a campus-based extracurricular role eventually became an opportunity to work on a research project exploring Bangladesh’s rich medicinal plant resources through bioinformatics.

Reflecting on the experience, Delwar encouraged fellow IUB students to look beyond the classroom and take part in extracurricular activities, leadership programmes and research opportunities that can help turn academic knowledge into practical work.