The idea of establishing Bangladesh’s first dedicated C. elegans was conceived in a hotel room in the spring of 2017 in Florida, USA. Muntasir attended an anthelmintic conference and shared a hotel room with another researcher from Australia, Dr. Harunur Rashid, originally from Bangladesh. Muntasir expressed his interest to introduce C. elegans research in Bangladesh, starting from his hometown Chittagong. Basic science is non-existent in Bangladesh, and C. elegans, a well-known tool in basic research, is very easy to maintain and culture and was therefore thought of as the perfect vehicle through which to introduce basic research in academic institutions in the country. With the generous help of Prof. Himel Barua (Dept of Microbiology) and Prof Azizul Islam (Dept of Pharmacology), Muntasir conducted several lab demonstrations and gave lectures in the summer of 2018 at Chittagong Veterinary & Animal Sciences University (CVASU) and prepared the first batch of C. elegans researchers of Bangladesh.

At the same time, Prof. Hasanuzzaman Talukder at Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU) in Trishal, Mymensingh connected with the Chittagong team and started the second C. elegans culture in his lab and helped train another batch of C. elegans scientists!

Several possible C. elegans projects were proposed. In 2023, the CVASU team started a project aimed at discovering beneficial biological activities of extracts obtained from medicinal plants. Currently, CVASU is actively engaging in development of new extraction protocols suited for high-throughput screening (HTS), as well as HTS of prepared extracts in the parasite model, C. elegans. These experiments have already revealed many interesting hits and demonstrated as a proof-of-principle the promise C. elegans holds in basic research education and training in Bangladesh.