We remember Saiyeda Qudsiya Akhtar

On 16 March 2005 Saiyeda Qudsiya Akhtar passed away, probably due to heart failure following a long fight with kidney disease (she had been on dialysis).  With indomitable spirit Qudsiya was preparing dinner for her only son, who had just arrived from the USA earlier in the week and was visiting his parents Dhanmondi Flat. She collapsed and died, leaving her BUET Architect professor husband, Meer Mobasher Ali, and their younger son, daughter, myriads of close friends and relatives, and ICDDR,B alumni colleagues to grieve her departure but also to celebrate her life.  She has left behind a wonderful legacy of scientific expertise and social concern.  She was 57.
 
Qudsiya was the daughter of teachers: the late Professor Saiyed Abdul Hai of Dhaka University and Salina Sultana, who taught at Central Woman's University. Qudsiya worked as a microbiologist at ICDDR,B after being a founder faculty member of the Microbiology Department of Dhaka University.  Upon returning from England, Qudsiya joined the Cholera Research Laboratory in the mid 1970s.  Following the tragic drowning death of their eldest son in 1988, Qudsiya decided to give up her career at ICDDR,B and founded a social welfare trust, the Ibrahim Shobat Meer Welfare Organization, in her sons memory.  

Since 1991 the Trust has established small libraries in 42 Bangladesh orphanages and began a library in Dhaka Central Jail with plans to start income generation jobs for women prisoners.   With just small budgets, the Ibrahim Shohbat Meer Welfare Organization has also given 16 secondary school scholarships for underprivileged orphan girls to extend their secondary education into safer futures after the girls are dismissed from orphanages at age 18.

Qudsiya had planned to continue a quarterly childrens science magazine called Mashuq as well as establish an institute of biotechnology.  She had hopes of her sons trust beginning an orphanage in Dhaka that would give 100 children life-long guidance, rather than the current dangerous custom of 18-year-old orphan women becoming homeless with possible trafficked futures as prostitutes.  We all hope that others will keep these dreams alive.

Qudsiya authored many scientific papers on laboratory procedures for identifying diarrhoeal pathogens (Campylobacter jejuni, Clostridium difficile, Escherichia coli). Qudsiya also participated in a Swiss-sponsored Architectural Knowledge and Cultural Diversity symposium in Monte Verità, Ascona Switzerland and contributed a chapter to the symposium proceedings published in 1999.  A visiting professor on Environmental Studies at North South University in Dhaka, she was life member of Bangladesh Society of Microbiology, Botanical Association for Advancement of Science, Nutrition Society of Bangladesh and Biochemical Society.