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Mootaz Salman

BPharm, MSc, PhD


Group Leader and MRC Career Development Fellow

  • Group Leader at Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery
  • Departmental Research Lecturer
  • Research Fellow at Wolfson College
  • Governing Body Fellow at Wolfson College

Positions of Responsibility

  • Convener of the Head of the Department (DPAG) Seminar Series.
  • Senior Doctoral Training Advisor (SDTA)
  • Member of the DPAG Graduate Studies Committee.
  • Member of the DPAG Outreach and Public Engagement Working Group.
  • Founding member of the aquaporin sub-committee, IUPHAR/Guide to Pharmacology. British Pharmacological Society

Research Interests

Dr Mootaz Salman is a Group Leader in Cellular Neuroscience and MRC Career Development Fellow. He is also a Research Fellow at Wolfson College in Oxford.

His work involves investigating mechanisms of blood-brain barrier (dys)function in traumatic CNS injuries and neurodegenerative diseases using patient-derived stem cells, gene editing (CRISPR-Cas 9), advanced imaging and organ-on-a-chip technologies.


Biography

After graduating with a Bachelor of Pharmacy with Honours (BPharm(Hons)) from the University of Mosul, he studied for Masters and Doctoral degrees at Sheffield Hallam University, investigating the mechanisms of brain water transport where he discovered a novel pharmacological framework for developing drugs to treat traumatic brain injuries and stroke.

He held my postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital where I spent 3 years. During this time, he developed 3D in vitro models to investigate mechanisms involved in improving the effectiveness of therapeutic antibodies for Alzheimer’s disease in collaboration with Biogen.

He moved to Oxford and joined DPAG in late 2020, working on CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering of human iPSC-derived neurons from Parkinson’s patients to investigate molecular disease mechanisms in collaboration with GSK. In 2021, he was awarded the Leverhulme Research Fellowship that enabled him to start his independent work and he became a Departmental Research Lecturer.

In 2023, he launched my research group at DPAG and Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery, which is primarly funded through his MRC Career Development Fellowship, and also supported by by other grants including BBSRC Pioneer Award, CONNECT - Horizon2020, and Chief Scientist Office Research Grant.

His group aims to investigate mechanisms of blood-brain barrier (dys)function in neurodegenerative diseases and brain injuries, using patient-derived stem cells. They design and build innovative dynamic 3D multicellular in vitro models to accurately recapitulate the brain and blood-brain barrier function under mechanobiological stimuli, neuroinflammation and other neurodegenerative-relevant conditions.


Team

Current:

We are looking for motivated Post-doctoral Scientists, Research Assistants and students who are interested in combining state-of-the-art organ-on-chip technology and patient-derived stem cells to join our group and investigate molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases and brain injuries.

Previous members:

  • Ms Rachel Walsh (FHS student). Currently, she is continuning her MD degree at the University of Oxford.
  • Dr Kalina Naidoo (Postdoctoral Research Scientist). Currently, she is doing her second post-doctoral training with Prof. Richard Wade-Martins and Dr Brent Ryan at DPAG, University of Oxford.
  • Ms Elly Robles (Visiting Graduate from Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico). Currently, she is a DPhil student at DPAG, University of Oxford.
  • Dr Ewa Grassin (Visiting Postdoctoral Scientist from University of Geneva). Currently, she is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in the US.
  • Ms Elba Molpeceres Sierra (MSc student from University of Bordeaux). Currently, she is pursuing her PhD at Bordeaux Neurocampus in France.

Key publications

Recent publications

More publications