Samir is the head of the R & D department in Vaccine Valley (an Egyptian factory for manufacturing veterinary vaccines). He is responsible for designing the pipeline of new vaccines, leading the feasibility and early development phases, and aiding in scaling up the process from the R&D scale to the production scale. His previous experience engaged the use of bioinformatics for the selection of conserved viral epitopes in avian influenza and avian infectious bronchitis virus to make better DNA vaccine candidates. He utilized the same approach for developing a multi-epitope DNA vaccine against COVID-19 in 2022. He also worked on the development of genetically modified avian influenza virus through reverse genetics technology to be utilized as a virus seed for inactivated avian influenza vaccines. His passion is to incorporate novel vaccine approaches with conventional vaccines to better cope with dynamic viral threats.
Skills/Expertise: Virus isolation, Virus characterization, Tissue culture, Molecular cloning, Western blotting, Bioinformatics, DNA vaccine development
Broadening the immune responses to vaccines with novel adjuvants &/or novel vaccine platforms.
- Development of inactivated Fowl adenovirus vaccine incorporating the current prevalent 8b and D strains.
- Validation of genetically modified DF1 cells (avian IFITM-knockout cells by CRISPR) for improved cell-based vaccine production (a collaborative project between Pirbright Institute and Vaccine Valley).
- Development of new CpG DNA adjuvant for poultry vaccines.