Mona Mostafa Mohamed

Dr. Mona Mostafa Mohamed is Professor of Cell and Cancer Biology, Founder and Director of the Cancer Biology Research Laboratory (CBRL), Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Egypt (http://cbrl.cu.edu.eg/). The Director of International Sector, Galala University, Suez, Egypt. 

Upon completion of her doctorate at Cairo University, Dr. Mohamed was competitively selected for a prestigious Postdoctoral Avon Foundation- American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) International Award in breast cancer research (2005-2007), at School of Medicine, Pharmacology Department, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA.

During her postdoctoral Dr. Mohamed published a “Nature” paper in 2006 as the first author. Dr. Mohamed was the first women at Cairo University to publish in Nature as a first author. Dr. Mohamed Nature paper in 2006 increased Cairo University ranking to be included in the top 500 Universities all over the world. 

In 2008 Dr. Mohamed was awarded a start up fund from Avon foundation, USA to establish the first specific breast cancer biology research lab in Egypt. Dr. Mohamed was awarded several international grants from different international organizations such as: 1) Avon Foundation-USA, 2) NIH-Fogarty-USA [2 grants], 3) USA-Egypt joint grants, 3) USA-Egypt joint grants and, 4) European Commission (Horizon 2020). 

Dr Mohamed’s research interest is studying breast cancer disease pathogenesis by using advanced molecular and cellular approaches to investigate whether breast cancer patients’ variability in tumor microenvironment genome/proteome and inflammatory mediators may alter clinical manifestations of the disease. Recently Dr Mohamed’s lab is utilizing highly sophisticated research approaches combined with cutting edge bioinformatics and artificial intelligence tools to analyze cellular and molecular alterations of patients’ derived ex-vivo models) to identify druggable pathways and targets can be presented for pharmaceutical industry for clinical trials (Funded by NIH-Fogarty).

In 2023, Dr Mohamed's lab is the first worldwide to establish patient derived explants (PDEs) Ex-vivo model  for inflammatory breast cancer patients  (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36592055/). 

Dr Mohamed’s main local, national, and international collaborative research aims is to improve treatment outcomes and breast cancer patient survival, by moving toward more accurate approaches to understand how patient biology may alter disease progression. Dr. Mohamed has supervised 40 MSc and 10 PhD students’ theses, her students got postdoctoral positions in USA, Germany, UK, France and Canada. Dr. Mohamed mentored her students to publish peer review articles as first corresponding authors.

Furthermore, Dr. Mohamed trained students from different countries all over the world and arranged international students scientific exchange mobility programs between different countries. Dr Mohamed’s accomplishments in cancer research are evident by high-quality publications (more than 50 papers), track record of funding, and internationally recognized collaborative research programs.In collaboration with highly ranked worldwide universities in USA, Germany, Canada, UK and France. 

Because of Dr. Mohamed scientific achievements, she had been awarded several awards for example, in 2012, Dr Mohamed was selected by U.S. State Department to be inducted into the Women in Science Hall of Fame (https://jo.usembassy.gov/women-in-science-hall-of-fame-2012/cairo-mona-mostafa-mohamed/). In 2014, Dr Mohamed received Arab Women Organization Prize in Science and Technology. In 2021, Dr Mohamed received Excellence Award for Arab Women in Medicine by League in Arab States, the ceremony was in EXPO Dubai 2020. In 2022, Dr Mohamed was awarded Women in Science: BioScience Scientists Awards.