Dr Maziar Ashrafian Bonab (MD, MSc, PhD, PGCLTHE) (Persian: مازیار اشرفیان بناب) is an Iranian forensic pathologist and a medical geneticist specialising in forensic and cancer genetics (the use of the DNA markers in the investigation of crime, biological anthropology and cancer genetics) and Forensic Facial Reconstruction. Part of his groundbreaking research uses human DNA markers (mainly mtDNA and the Y chromosome markers) to identify the ancestral history of humans/human populations in both anthropological and forensic cases. His main area of research is Cancer Genetics. Maziar was born in Tehran, Iran (September 1966). Before completing his PhD in Cambridge, he first qualified as a Medical Doctor from Tehran University of Medical Sciences (1984–1991) and worked as a Medical Practitioner in Iran. After completing a postgraduate course in Forensic Medicine at the Iranian Legal Medical Organization (1992), he worked as the head of Hormozgan Province Legal Medical Centre (Iran) for four years (1992–1996). As well as dealing with many different forensic cases and having done more than 400 autopsies, he taught forensic medicine and medical anthropology to the undergraduate and postgraduate degree programmes within the Bandar-Abbas University of Medical Sciences and Bandar-Abbas Islamic Azad University. From 1996 to 2002, he worked as an academic member of the Iranian Archaeological Research Centre at the Cultural Heritage Organization of Iran (ICHO) - and as a forensic anthropologist, he participated in seventeen archaeological excavations around Iran. At the same time as the founder and head of The National Museum of Medical Sciences History (Iran), he worked in the first medical museum in the country and the largest one in the Middle East. In 2003 he completed an MSc degree in Archaeology (2002–2003) at the Department of Biomolecular Sciences; University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and in October 2003, he started a PhD in the field of Genetics at the University of Cambridge. He has published various books and papers on his research. In his current research, he is using genetic tools to investigate the maternal and paternal history of the Iranian ethnic groups and also the emergence of the first farmers in the Iranian Plateau (eastern parts of the Fertile Crescent) and the origin of Aryans (Indo-Iranians) and Indo-Aryan race theory. His research also included the following: Understanding of how the genetic variants contribute to disease. Development of new methods to address questions regarding genetic disorders, particularly various cancers. Investigation of the genetic variations in the connexin genes that lead to various human disorders, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, congenital disorders and secondary lymphedema. Identifying genes predisposing humans to cancer or contributing to cancer growth through somatic changes. Source: Wikipedia (en)