Biography:

● Professor of General Surgery, Ain Shams University; March 2006
● Member of the Health Committee in the Egyptian National Council for Women
● Member of the Policy Committee, the Egyptian National Democratic Party
● Visiting Scholar at the Centre of Minimally Invasive Surgery, Ohio State University Medical Centre: June to December 2001

Social Activities

● Member of several national and international surgical societies
● Participated in several surgical conferences
● Published 20 scientific papers in general surgery
● Published a book entitled "A generation without a head ", by Dar El-Maaref, in 2002
● Awarded a Travel Fellowship to attend the conference of the European Society of Digestive Surgery: Barcelona, Spain, October 1998

Abstract:

Clash of Species: The Evolutionary War between Man and Viruses

In recent years, several virus pandemics have emerged as a significant threat to man. H1N1 just joined HIV, and Avian flu. Evolutionary changes of viruses play a key role in their spread, virulence, and persistence. Other species are involved in what looks like a biological war, e.g. pigs, birds and monkeys. It may be considered clash of species. The ongoing war between humans and viruses gives tribute to the theory of evolution. However, three major human factors in the form of socioeconomic evolutions have worked in favor of viruses.

A Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production (PCIFAP) warned that raising animals in concentrated large farms carries the risk of spread of resistant bacteria. Their workers suffer a high incidence of respiratory problems, and can serve as a bridging population, transmitting animal-borne diseases to a wider population.

Secondly, slums are a sanitarian nightmare from the public health perspective. They constitute a good medium for eruption of epidemics. In developed countries 6 percent of urban population live in slums, compared to 78.2 percent of the urban population in less-developed countries a third of the global urban population. Thirdly, in a globalized world, accelerated connectivity enabled disease spread and mutations through large populations across vast distances. For infectious diseases, we need to do what has been done for heart attacks in medicine - move from treatment to prediction and prevention. Prevention should deal with the above mentioned socioeconomic factors as well as the development of drugs and vaccines against the current virus