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Contact information


mootaz.salman@dpag.ox.ac.uk


01865 282656

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Mootaz Salman

PhD MSc BPharm

Departmental Research Lecturer and Leverhulme Fellow

  • Team Leader and Senior Research Scientist in Cellular Neuroscience
  • Team Leader at Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery
  • Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College
  • Governing Body Fellow at Wolfson College
  • Senior Doctoral Training Advisor (SDTA)

Positions of Responsibility

  • Convener of the Head of the Department (DPAG) Seminar Series (together with Dr Armin Lak).
  • 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

I am a Research Lecturer and Leverhulme Trust Fellow. I am interested in investigating mechanisms of blood-brain barrier (dys)function in neurodegenerative diseases using patient-derived stem cells, gene editing (CRISPR-Cas 9) and organ-on-a-chip technologies.

Biography

After graduating with a Bachelor of Pharmacy with Honours (BPharm(Hons)) from the University of Mosul, I studied for Masters and Doctoral degrees at Sheffield Hallam University. Working with Professor Nicola Woodroofe and Dr Matthew Conner, my PhD project investigated the mechanisms of water channel translocation in human brain cells. I discovered a novel pharmacological framework for developing new drugs to treat traumatic brain injury, brain oedema and stroke.

I held my first postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital working with Professor Tom Kirchhausen. The project was in collaboration with Biogen®. I aimed to understand the cellular physiology of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in order to exploit the mechanisms involved in improving the effectiveness of therapeutic antibodies. The project involved developing an in vitro microphysiological 3D model that can be used for multiple high-resolution imaging modalities. I used transmission electron microscopy (TEM), 3D live fluorescence imaging, spinning disk confocal microscopy and advanced lattice light sheet microscopy (LLSM) to study the trans-BBB trafficking of fluorescently-labelled therapeutic proteins and antibodies.

I joined the Wade-Martins group in late 2020. As part of Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre (OPDC), the aim of my project was to contribute to the development of novel therapeutic target discovery for Parkinson’s. I used CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering of highly physiologically-relevant human iPSC lines from Parkinson’s patients differentiated into dopaminergic neurons to investigate molecular disease mechanisms and validate new therapeutic hits. The project was in collaboration with GSK® which offered an exciting opportunity to work at the translational interface of academic and industry target discovery and drug development.

Team

Dr Kalina Naidoo (Postdoctoral Research Scientist).

Ms Elly Robles (Visiting Graduate from Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico).

Previous members:

Dr Ewa Grassin (Visiting Postdoctoral Scientist from University of Geneva). Currently, she is a Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School.

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

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