Pakistani inventions and discoveries This article lists inventions and discoveries of Pakistani nationality within Pakistan and outside the country. And those made in the territorial area of what is now Pakistan prior to the independence of Pakistan in 1947.
AGRICULTURE In 2013, a Pakistani firm invented a new formula to make fertilizers that cannot be converted into bomb-making materials. The firm, Fatima Fertilizer, had succeeded in making non-lethal alternatives to ammonium nitrate, a key ingredient in the fertilizers it makes. Fertilizers with ammonium nitrate, however, can easily be converted into bomb-making ingredients.
BIOLOGY • Dr. Naweed Syed, a specialist in the field of biomedical engineering and member of the medicine faculty at the University of Calgary, became the first scientist who managed to “connect brain cells to a silicon chip”. The discovery is a major step in the research of integrating computers with human brains to help people control artificial limbs, monitor people’s vital signs, correct memory loss or impaired vision. • Dr Samir Iqbal, an associate professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Texas at Arlington. He developed a novel cancer cell detection method that improves early diagnosis through a tool that tracks cellular behavior in real time using nanotextured walls that mimic layers of body tissue.
CHEMISTRY • Development of the world’s first workable plastic magnet at room temperature by organic chemist and polymer scientist Naveed Zaidi.
PHYSICS Standard model of Electroweak Interaction. • Discovery of electroweak interaction by Abdus Salam, along with two Americans Sheldon Lee Glashow and Steven Weinberg. The discovery led them to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. • Abdus Salam who along with Steven Weinberg independently predicted the existence of a subatomic particle now called the Higgs boson, Named after a British physicist who theorized that it endowed other particles with mass. • The development of the Standard Model of particle physics by Sheldon Glashow’s discovery in 1960 of a way to combine the electromagnetic and weak interactions. In 1967 Steven Weinberg and Abdus Salamin corporated the Higgs mechanism into Glashow’s electroweak theory, giving it its modern form. • Development of the SMB probe to detect heavy water leaks in nuclear power plants by Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood • In 2015 Pakistani researchers developed a solar powered mobile phone network. The network according to them is useful for instances when regular services are disrupted such as earthquakes and floods • Abdullah Soomro invented Flashpack, a power bank that is able to charge fully in just 14 minutes
MEDICINE • Schematic representation of an implanted Ommaya reservoir. • Ayub K. Ommaya, a Pakistani neurosurgeon developed The Ommaya reservoir – a system for the delivery of drugs (e.g. chemotherapy) into the cerebrospinal fluid for treatment of patients with brain tumors. • Faisal Kashif developed a non-invasive technology for monitoring intracranial pressure (ICP). •Sayed Amjad Hussain, a Pakistani American doctor from Peshawar, Pakistan invented Two medical devices – a pleuroperitoneal shunt and a special endotracheal tube to supply oxygen during fiberoptic bronchoscopy in awake patients. His work made him an inductee into the Medical Mission Hall of Fame. • Pakistani doctor A. K. Jamil. Designed a non-kink catheter mount. He also developed a simple device for teaching controlled ventilation
COMPUTING A boot sector computer virus dubbed (c)Brain, one of the first computer viruses in history, In 1986 Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan created deter unauthorized copying of the software they had written.
Pakistani computer scientist, Zeeshan-ul-Hassan Usmani designed.A Software simulation based on blast forensics that can reduce deaths by 12 per cent and injuries by seven per cent on average just by changing the way a crowd of people stand near an expected suicide bomber.
MUSIC Raza Kazim of the Sanjannagar Institute in Lahore developed, the Sagar veena, a string instrument designed for use in classical music
ECONOMICS Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq in 1990 devised The Human Development Index and had the explicit purpose “to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people centered policies”.
OTHER TECHNOLOGY Professor Sohail Khan,headed the researcher at Loughborough University,designed a clever lavatory that transforms human waste into biological charcoal and minerals. These can then be used as fuel or a form of conditioner for soil. It also produces clean water. The invention can lead to community-led total sanitation in the developing world.
