Egyptian to Deliver Gene Therapy to Combat Diseases Soon

By: Ibrahim Eldeeb and Yassmine ElSayed

CAIRO, Dec. 28 (SEE) - In Egypt, we used to see how the developed countries are keen to attract Egyptian intellectuals, granting them and their families lots of privileges so as to benefit from them to the maximum. One of those privileges, is by issuing a residence permit with ‘Professional expert with special skills’ written as a profession.. This person then be part of the VIP community.

This was what has been exactly done with Dr. Ikrami Khalil, teacher at the faculty of Pharmacy, Assiut University. However he refused to reside in Japan and stayed travelling between Assiut and Japanese Hokkaido university for nine years.

Speaking to ‘SEE’, Dr. Khalil said that he works in the field of gene therapy, a field in which Japan is competing with America and Canada at. “This field is expected to make a shift in the field of medicine and treatment for the most severe Diseases, such as cancer,” he said.

He explained that the traditional chemotherapy is with very little affect, as it treats the symptoms of the disease and not the core. “Researches proved that most diseases caused by a defect in the genes of the human body, and the gene found in the nucleus of the body cell produce proteins.. any genetic disruption will cause a disease, and here the gene therapy will work,” he added.

Dr. Khalil formed a research team of 5 students; two Egyptians and three Japanese. The role of this team, according to Khalil, is to deliver the drugs to the defected genes inside the cells, without touching the good one. This helps to abandon side effects and the delivering of full doses of the genetic drugs of the infected cells would reduce the doses and the time of recovery as well as the cost.

Khalil hopes that his medicine, which he has already examined at animals, will come to light in several months, so that America will not be the sole country serving gene therapy.

Dr. Khalil, who imposed the conditions of his residence on Japanese, showed first signs of intellectual excellence at his childhood, school, and in the university.