Dr. Abdus Salam (Mohammed Abdus Salam) was born on 29 January 1926 at Santokdas, Sahiwal in Punjab.

He was a Pakistani theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979 for his work in electroweak theory which is the mathematical and conceptual synthesis of the electromagnetic and weak interactions, the latest stage in the effort to provide a unified description of the four fundamental forces of nature. Salam, Sheldon Glashow and Steven Weinberg arrived at the theory independently and shared the prize. Abdus Salam was an exceptional student in high school.

During the early 1960s Salam played a very significant role in starting Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission and Suparco - the country's space agency.

Salam was a firm believer that "scientific thought is the common heritage of mankind", and that developing nations needed to help themselves and invest in their own scientists to boost development and fill the gap between the rich North and the poor South of the planet, thus contributing to a more peaceful world. Salam also founded the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and was instrumental in the creation of a number of international centres dedicated to the advancement of science and technology.

From 1956 he was Professor of Theoretical Physics at Imperial College of University of London.

In 1964, he founded the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste in Northeastern Italy.

He passed away at the age of 70 in Oxford on 21 November 1996.