Among the 100 candidates in molecular biology from various major universities around the world, a young Egyptian PhD student was awarded a prestigious international prize to be one of the three winners of the ''Max Bernsteil International Prize'' by Max Bernsteil Organization and the Pathology Institute in Vienna.
Mohamad El-Brolosy is a 27-year-old PhD student in gene science at Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research in Bad Nauheim, Germany, whose research probes the so-called compensatory genetic processes.
El-Brolosy told SEE that in his research, he was interested in finding out why certain genetic abnormalities can affect one person and not another; through animal experiments, he first discovered a mechanism within the cell that could read genetic abnormalities.
He also found out that mutations that might affect an organism negatively can lead to an increased expression of related genes, which then can take over the function of the mutated gene; a key mechanism to ensure genetic robustness against perturbations.
He is co-author of several scientific publications, including a seminal study reported in Nature.
El-Brolosy grew up in Egypt, where he attended the German University Cairo before doing a master’s at the International Max Planck Research School in Göttingen.
He was Vice-President and Secretary-General of the PhD Students' Union at the Max Planck Research Centers in 2018.
Max Planck is Germany's largest research institution with 84 research institutes in various disciplines and many Nobel Prize winners.
On other hand, he was in contact with the president of the Max Planck Foundation to represent PhD students in the institution and convey their demands and ways to improve research conditions
Noteworthy, the inaugural International Birnstiel Award is given to three young scientists that stood out from exceptionally strong competition.
Over 100 nominations were received from institutions in Europe, the US and Asia; countries put forward their most talented PhD students from the previous year, covering a broad spectrum of the molecular life sciences.
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