Mohamed El-sayed MSc, PhD

Dr. Mohamed I. Husseiny El-Sayed, MSc, Ph.D. is an Assistant Research Professor at Beckman Research Institute at the City of Hope. Mohamed Elsayed, Ph.D., started his academic career in 1994 in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Zagazig University, Egypt. During that time he studied the susceptibility of bacteria and fungi to antibacterial and antifungal agents.

Soon after, he began his Ph.D. project at the Institute for Clinical Microbiology, Immunology, and Hygiene, Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Neurnberg, Germany, in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Hensel. The ultimate goal of his Ph.D. project was the development of novel vaccination strategies using attenuated Salmonella as live carriers for recombinant vaccines. The idea was to utilize Salmonella to create recombinant live vaccines for mucosal immunization. This work provides a promising platform for the production of diverse vaccines

After obtaining his Ph.D., he went back to Egypt to start his faculty position as Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Zagazig University, Egypt.

Later he suspended his work in Egypt and started his work in the USA as a postdoctoral fellow at LA-Biomed at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Torrance, CA. He is involved in the project of generating isogenic null mutants of rFTR1 in R. oryzae to study the role of iron-related virulence, and also the expression and secretion of rFTR1 protein by yeast for vaccination purposes.

Dr. Elsayed then became a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Seeger at Children Hospital Los Angeles, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Keck School of Medicine, USC, Los Angeles, CA. The goal of his project was to develop a novel vaccine against cancer cells using SPI2-T3SS of Salmonella as a live vector vaccine. We have constructed a new SPI2-based oral Salmonella vaccine against Survivin (TAA) and evaluated the vaccine immunogenicity and anti-tumor efficacy in two murine models of cancer. The combined use of Salmonella-based Survivin with GSL1 leads to enhanced immunogenicity and increased anti-tumor efficacy. This suggests that NKT ligands could be used as adjuvants for Salmonella-based cancer vaccines. Also, he examined the potential use of SPI2-T3SS of Salmonella as an oral vaccine against neuroblastoma. The rationale was based on our preliminary data that demonstrated specific CD8 immune responses after oral vaccination with Salmonella.

He then became a postdoctoral fellow in the City of Hope with Dr. Simon Lacey, Division of Translational Vaccine Research, Beckman Research Institute. His project focused on the development of the concept of engineering recombinant BK virus (rBKV) to express HIV antigenic polypeptides as a candidate HIV vaccine. He used a novel strategy to generate a panel of recombinant BK virus (rBKV) expressing various fragments of the HIV-1 gag polypeptide and green fluorescent protein (GFP) under the control of the BKV late promoter. He has established a method for the generation of infectious rBKV from genomic DNAs introduced into cultured cells.