His lab focuses on deciphering the roles of transcription factors – members of peroxisome proliferator activated receptors (PPAR) and CCAAT/ eDr Habsah’s field of specialization is Natural Product Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. Currently she has been appointed as programme
head for subcluster Natural and Synthetic Products at Institute of Marine Biotechnology. Her research interest on marine natural products involved profiling, isolation and structural elucidation of coastal plants which include mangrove plant, marine organism which included marine sponges and seaweeds. Recently she involved in semisynthesis of bioactive compounds derived from interested organism. She also interested in development of bioassays related to antifouling, vibriosis, atheroschlerosis and neurodegenerative diseases. She actively involved in establishment of chemical library for cosmeceutical, AcHE inhibitors, GABAA modulators, molecular docking and antifouling biocide. Dr Habsah is actively involved in research. She has been a research leader for 6 research projects with total grant amounting to RM666,000.00. She also a co-reseacher in 5 other projects. She is heavily involved in the research supervision of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Fulfilling the role of the main supervisor she has supervised 1 PhD student, 6 MSc student, and more than 50 undergraduate students. She has also co-supervised 5 PhD students, 13 MSc students. Currently, 3 of her PhD students and 15 of her MSc student have graduated.Dr Habsah has papers, patent and product innovation carved with her name. She has participated in many national and international symposiums and conference, published article in various national and international refereed journals. The summary of her achievement are; 1 patent entitled Method of treating inflammatory disease with cardamomin (Patent no: MY-143280-A), Bronze medal in Malaysian Technology Expo 2007, Silver medal in ITEX-05, 35 articles published in refereed journals locally and internationally (H index=7, Citations=322)nhancer binding proteins (C/EBP) – in regulating the gene expression of important proteins that are responsible in the development of type II diabetes mellitus, atherosclerosis and acute phase response. In addition, he is interested in using molecular biology-based approach in developing target-based high-throughput screening platform to screen for potential hits from natural products against type II diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis as well as cancers. Such molecular targets include PCSK9 and SR-B1 for atherosclerosis as well as PPARγ for type II diabetes mellitus. He also works on the elucidation of the molecular mechanisms of action of apoptotic cell death exerted by small molecules on cancer cells.